What do you think?
Rate this book
Les Lois De L' Imitation: Étude Sociologique
This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1890 edition by Félix Alcan, Paris.
442 pages, Paperback
First published October 15, 2013
22 people are currently reading
326 people want to read
About the author
Gabriel Tarde
96 books25 followersJean-Gabriel de Tarde, writing as Gabriel Tarde was a French sociologist, criminologist and social psychologist.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 23, 2023
Tarde belongs to that initial moment of sociology's emergence as a science as such. In this sense, as a science, it was incumbent on the sociologist to identify the fundamental characteristic that distinguishes science as such, and the manner in which sociology as one more science fits into the scientific field. In Tarde's understanding, science considers the regular phenomena or what he will call the repetitions which constitute reality. He identifies three universal types of repetition, physical repetitions or vibrations, biological repetitions or heredity and social repetitions or imitations. As the science of the social then, sociology will be interested in uncovering what the laws are that organize the behavior of imitations in the social field. Therefore, Tarde understands social subjects as essentially imitative and as being social to the extent that they imitate. Tarde characterizes the process of imitation as being somnambulist; in imitating we are not consciousness that we are doing as such, but rather take our imitations to be subjectively inherent. In speaking for instance, we do not take our speech to be the imitation of a prior model, to the contrary we understand this imitative behavior of language reproduction to be subjectively essential.
On the other side of imitation, Tarde places invention. Inventions arise through the intersection of what Tarde describes as two currents or waves of imitation, which propagate or pass contagiously in their movement through society. Eventually, two waves of imitation will find a meeting place in the mind of an inventor, producing an interference whose result will be the emergence of an invention that will serve as a model for subsequent currents of imitation or not, in which case it would not be of sociological importance. In this manner imitation and invention enter into a self-generative cycle whereby imitations produce inventions which in turn produce new cycles of imitation. It is worth noting that in the case of invention, Tarde takes the brain itself of the inventor to somehow be the agent of the invention.
However, for Tarde, it is only the imitations which can be said to behave according to a truly social logic. Invention, to the contrary will behave according to what he describes as an individual logic. There are two basic ways in which currents of imitation can interact, either through reinforcement or negation, via each imitation augmenting the efficacy of the other or through the diverse waves of imitation entering into conflict and generating finally the ascendancy of one or the other of the two waves. Tarde conceptualizes these interactive processes as being properly logical, that is, generating contradictory or mutually beneficial relations which seek to resolve themselves either through growth or ascendancy.
Below the level of the imitations and inventions which constitute the form of the social, Tarde conceives of a field of desire and belief which animate or instigate the movements of imitations and inventions. For Tarde, these will be the social forces, in the properly physical sense of the concept. Desires, Tarde associates with a temporal character, being fundamentally dynamic while beliefs possess a structural or conceptual character, being therefore spatial in character. Desires animate our voluntary activity while beliefs organize our intellectual perspectives. It is the tendency of desires to move in the direction of beliefs, to establish themselves as conceptually coherent structures reducing in the process the intensity of the initial desire which animated the emergence of the belief.
Taking all of this into consideration, imitations and inventions, and beliefs and desires can potentially enter into diverse networks of relations constitutive of a given historical moment. The point for Tarde however, is that we can deal numerically with all these variable formations that beliefs and desires, as properly social quantities according to their level of intensity or weakness at any given moment, can constitute. Just as we can measure the speed and range of the spread of an invention via imitative acts, so to can desires and beliefs show different levels of commitment at given moments of their existence. For Tarde it is statistics that most accurately captures the range of movement which waves of imitation pass through, showing the pure quantity of acts of imitation in the present.
On the other side of imitation, Tarde places invention. Inventions arise through the intersection of what Tarde describes as two currents or waves of imitation, which propagate or pass contagiously in their movement through society. Eventually, two waves of imitation will find a meeting place in the mind of an inventor, producing an interference whose result will be the emergence of an invention that will serve as a model for subsequent currents of imitation or not, in which case it would not be of sociological importance. In this manner imitation and invention enter into a self-generative cycle whereby imitations produce inventions which in turn produce new cycles of imitation. It is worth noting that in the case of invention, Tarde takes the brain itself of the inventor to somehow be the agent of the invention.
However, for Tarde, it is only the imitations which can be said to behave according to a truly social logic. Invention, to the contrary will behave according to what he describes as an individual logic. There are two basic ways in which currents of imitation can interact, either through reinforcement or negation, via each imitation augmenting the efficacy of the other or through the diverse waves of imitation entering into conflict and generating finally the ascendancy of one or the other of the two waves. Tarde conceptualizes these interactive processes as being properly logical, that is, generating contradictory or mutually beneficial relations which seek to resolve themselves either through growth or ascendancy.
Below the level of the imitations and inventions which constitute the form of the social, Tarde conceives of a field of desire and belief which animate or instigate the movements of imitations and inventions. For Tarde, these will be the social forces, in the properly physical sense of the concept. Desires, Tarde associates with a temporal character, being fundamentally dynamic while beliefs possess a structural or conceptual character, being therefore spatial in character. Desires animate our voluntary activity while beliefs organize our intellectual perspectives. It is the tendency of desires to move in the direction of beliefs, to establish themselves as conceptually coherent structures reducing in the process the intensity of the initial desire which animated the emergence of the belief.
Taking all of this into consideration, imitations and inventions, and beliefs and desires can potentially enter into diverse networks of relations constitutive of a given historical moment. The point for Tarde however, is that we can deal numerically with all these variable formations that beliefs and desires, as properly social quantities according to their level of intensity or weakness at any given moment, can constitute. Just as we can measure the speed and range of the spread of an invention via imitative acts, so to can desires and beliefs show different levels of commitment at given moments of their existence. For Tarde it is statistics that most accurately captures the range of movement which waves of imitation pass through, showing the pure quantity of acts of imitation in the present.
March 12, 2023
The Laws of Imitation is one of those rare heavy-duty theoretical works which is also highly entertaining to read. Tarde's writing is full of reverie and passion-filled tangents, although he always manages to reel himself back to his primary subject. The plentiful examples and sidebar conversations here are almost exciting as the book's overall thesis, which is fairly electrifying itself.
The basic thesis is this: repetition is at the root of every kind of phenomena in reality: (1) Socially, repetition expresses itself as Imitation. Currents of behavior quiver out through society from unknown origins. This is the book's main focus, but Tarde is crystal clear, that Universal Repetition is not merely a Social/Imitative phenomenon; (2) Biologically (vitally), repetition expresses itself as Heredity. The bodily structure of organisms pulsate outward through reproduction to repeat the predecessor's characteristics in its offspring; and (3) In terms of Physics/Physical Force, repetition expresses itself as Vibration. Vibrating particles and waves go on to create physical structures and currents of energy.
Even in terms of an individual life, we find repetition everywhere. In the Nervous System, repetition expresses itself as Memory. The repetition of certain pathways of nervous impulse create what we consciously experience as memory, or unconsciously experience as the "reflex" which guides our movement.
As with most people here, I discovered Tarde after reading Gilles Deleuze's "magnum opus," Difference and Repetition. I have at least skimmed through most of the authors Deleuze cites in that book, and I believe that of them all, Tarde acts as the best primer for the immense difficulties contained in Deleuze's masterwork in that it outlines some of the main structural themes in Difference and Repetition, but in far less esoteric language. The Laws of Imitation is a highly pleasurable, stimulating book that deserves a wider readership.
The basic thesis is this: repetition is at the root of every kind of phenomena in reality: (1) Socially, repetition expresses itself as Imitation. Currents of behavior quiver out through society from unknown origins. This is the book's main focus, but Tarde is crystal clear, that Universal Repetition is not merely a Social/Imitative phenomenon; (2) Biologically (vitally), repetition expresses itself as Heredity. The bodily structure of organisms pulsate outward through reproduction to repeat the predecessor's characteristics in its offspring; and (3) In terms of Physics/Physical Force, repetition expresses itself as Vibration. Vibrating particles and waves go on to create physical structures and currents of energy.
Even in terms of an individual life, we find repetition everywhere. In the Nervous System, repetition expresses itself as Memory. The repetition of certain pathways of nervous impulse create what we consciously experience as memory, or unconsciously experience as the "reflex" which guides our movement.
As with most people here, I discovered Tarde after reading Gilles Deleuze's "magnum opus," Difference and Repetition. I have at least skimmed through most of the authors Deleuze cites in that book, and I believe that of them all, Tarde acts as the best primer for the immense difficulties contained in Deleuze's masterwork in that it outlines some of the main structural themes in Difference and Repetition, but in far less esoteric language. The Laws of Imitation is a highly pleasurable, stimulating book that deserves a wider readership.
September 7, 2020
Read this and you'll be considerably less excited and disturbed with today's political movements. History, for Gabriel Tarde, is in a constant state of repetition, and the social demands of the present are indeed the inexorable imitations of the desires in the past. Tarde, in many ways, is the eminent forerunner of other 'big history' writers like Jared Diamond (Guns, Germs, and Steel,) Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens) and more recently Joseph Henrich (The WEIRDest People in the World), so those in search of heavier material should go further back in time to experience this highly understated work.
to-keep-reference
April 5, 2017¿Porque la racionalidad es aveces relegada y se convierten las masas en imitadores del líder/hipnotizador?
L es lois de l'imitation (Las leyes de la imitación), publicado en 1890,estableció una estricta analogía entre imitación y sonambulismo. El rol del líder (el equivalente del hipnotizador) es central en la determinación de la posibilidad de la imitación. Se traza una estricta distinción entre la invención, que implica la introducción de novedades (un rol que corresponde al líder), y la imitación, que es el modo de reproducción social que corresponde a la masa. La cohesión social es resultado de esas leyes de imitación que operan en varios niveles, pero siempre consisten en subordinar los momentos racionales y creativos a otros más bajos y no creativos. Los aspectos cognitivos de las creencias (croyances), por ejemplo, ocupan un rol secundario respecto de los afectivos (désires) , y la posibilidad real de la imitación depende de la acentuación de las funciones mentales más bajas a expensas de las más elevadas. La descripción del comportamiento de las masas que da Tarde en esta etapa de su carrera repite todos los lugares comunes de los primeros teóricos de masas: las multitudes son incapaces de pensamiento racional (siguiendo a Henry Fourn.ial, las denomina "criaturas espinales"), son asimiladas a los salvajes y a las mujeres, y cualquier tipo de reunión colectiva es sistemáticamente degradada.
La razón populista Pág.61
L es lois de l'imitation (Las leyes de la imitación), publicado en 1890,estableció una estricta analogía entre imitación y sonambulismo. El rol del líder (el equivalente del hipnotizador) es central en la determinación de la posibilidad de la imitación. Se traza una estricta distinción entre la invención, que implica la introducción de novedades (un rol que corresponde al líder), y la imitación, que es el modo de reproducción social que corresponde a la masa. La cohesión social es resultado de esas leyes de imitación que operan en varios niveles, pero siempre consisten en subordinar los momentos racionales y creativos a otros más bajos y no creativos. Los aspectos cognitivos de las creencias (croyances), por ejemplo, ocupan un rol secundario respecto de los afectivos (désires) , y la posibilidad real de la imitación depende de la acentuación de las funciones mentales más bajas a expensas de las más elevadas. La descripción del comportamiento de las masas que da Tarde en esta etapa de su carrera repite todos los lugares comunes de los primeros teóricos de masas: las multitudes son incapaces de pensamiento racional (siguiendo a Henry Fourn.ial, las denomina "criaturas espinales"), son asimiladas a los salvajes y a las mujeres, y cualquier tipo de reunión colectiva es sistemáticamente degradada.
La razón populista Pág.61
Read
April 24, 2007Read chapters 1-3; Tarde's main claims are that there are three types of repetition that make the world go around -- molecular vibration in the physical, hereditary in the biological, imitation in the social, thus putting social science into the family of other physical sciences; and that all repetition occurs for the sake of variation (for him, the homogeneous is more complex than the heterogeneous). That's the philosophical background that lets him then talk about how all human life is imitation or innovation, and that all innovation is based on imitation. (Bonus: all humans are alike, which is why so many of our made-forms are similar; but in the matter of style -- that which is not demanded by utility -- we have the most freedom.)
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews