Габриэль Тард: Социолог, криминолог и психолог

French sociologist

Gabriel Tarde (taʁd; in full Jean Gabriel De Tarde; 12 March 1843 – 13 May 1904) was a French sociologist, criminologist and social psychologist who conceived sociology as based on small psychological interactions among individuals (much as if it were chemistry), the fundamental forces being imitation and innovation.

Tarde was born and raised in Sarlat in the province of Dordogne. He studied law at Toulouse and Paris. From 1869 to 1894 he worked as a magistrate and investigating judge in the province. In the 1880s he corresponded with representatives of the newly formed criminal anthropology, most notably the Italians Enrico Ferri and Cesare Lombroso and the French psychiatrist Alexandre Lacassagne. With the latter, Tarde came to be the leading representative for a "French school" in criminology. In 1900 he was appointed professor in modern philosophy at the Collège de France. As such he was the most prominent contemporary critic of Durkheim's sociology.

Among the concepts that Tarde initiated were the group mind (taken up and developed by Gustave Le Bon, and sometimes advanced to explain so called herd behaviour or crowd psychology), and economic psychology, where he anticipated a number of modern developments. Tarde was very critical of Émile Durkheim's work at the level of both methodology and theory such as during the Tarde Durkheim debate in 1903. However, Tarde's insights were ridiculed as "metaphysics" and hastily dismissed by Durkheim and his followers who went on to largely establish the "science" of sociology, and it was not until U. S. scholars, such as the Chicago school, took up his theories that they became famous.

Tarde took an interest in criminology and the psychological basis of criminal behavior while working as a magistrate in public service. He was critical of the concept of the atavistic criminal as developed by Cesare Lombroso. Tarde's criminological studies served as the underpinning of his later sociology. Tarde also emphasized the tendency of the criminal to return to the scene of the crime and to repeat it, which he saw as part of a wider process of repetition compulsion.

Tarde considered imitation, conscious and unconscious, as a fundamental interpersonal trait, with the imitation of fathers by sons as the primal situation, resting on prestige. Tarde highlighted the importance of the creative exemplar in society, arguing that "genius is the capacity to engender one's own progeny".

Tarde also wrote a science fiction novel entitled Underground Man (Fragment d'histoire future, 1896). The plot is a post apocalyptic story of an Earth destroyed by a new Ice Age. Humanity must rebuild a new civilization underground. The choice is made to lay the foundation of their utopia on music and art.