Palgrave Studies in RelationalSociology

Series EditorFrançois Dépelteau

Laurentian UniversitySudbury, Canada

In various disciplines such as archeology, psychology, psychoanalysis,international relations, and philosophy, we have seen the emergence ofrelational approaches or theories. This series seeks to further developrelational sociology through the publication of diverse theoretical andempirical research—including that which is critical of the relationalapproach. In this respect, the goal of the series is to explore the advantagesand limits of relational sociology. The series welcomes contributionsrelated to various thinkers, theories, and methods clearly associated withrelational sociology (such as Bourdieu, critical realism, Deleuze, Dewey,Elias, Latour, Luhmann, Mead, network analysis, symbolic interactionism,Tarde, and Tilly). Multidisciplinary studies which are relevant to relationalsociology are also welcome, as well as research on various empirical topics(such as education, family, music, health, social inequalities, internationalrelations, feminism, ethnicity, environmental issues, politics, culture, vio-lence, social movements, and terrorism). Relational sociology—and morespecifically, this series—will contribute to change and support contempor-ary sociology by discussing fundamental principles and issues within arelational framework.

More information about this series athttp://www.springer.com/series/15100

Sergio Tonkonoff

From Tardeto Deleuze and

FoucaultThe Infinitesimal Revolution

Sergio TonkonoffConicet-ArgentinaUniversidad de Buenos AiresCapital Federal, Argentina

Palgrave Studies in Relational SociologyISBN 978-3-319-55148-7 ISBN 978-3-319-55149-4 (eBook)DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-55149-4

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017943360

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by thePublisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights oftranslation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction onmicrofilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage andretrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodologynow known or hereafter developed.The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in thispublication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names areexempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and informationin this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither thepublisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect tothe material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Thepublisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institu-tional affiliations.

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To my family

FOREWORD

Tarde, Deleuze, Foucault and Relational-processual SociologySeveral decades ago, the name Gabriel Tarde was rarely heard. Once an

intellectual leader in France, Tarde was left far away at the periphery of thesocial sciences. When his name was mentioned in the literature, it wasusually in negative ways. For example, some specialists of social move-ments referred to him as an example of what should not be done in theanalysis of collective action. In few words, Tarde’s theory was barelypresented and quickly dismissed for reducing collective behaviors to “irra-tional” processes of imitation, and for neglecting other crucial factors suchas “structural” and organizational ones.

As many have noticed more recently, Tarde’s relegation to the per-iphery came with the ascendency of the general idea that hidden and“external” social forces impose themselves on individuals and groups.Durkheim’s hypothesis that social phenomena are “social things”– or actas such – is an excellent example of this type of core world view. It isquite well known now that Tarde and Durkheim were involved in somesort of intellectual battle at the beginning of the twentieth century onthese types of fundamental issues, and that Durkheim “won” it. Throughthe works of people such as T. Parsons, L. Althusser and many others, theformidable influence of structuralism in the human sciences also con-tributed to the prevalence of the idea that our social life is influenced byhidden social forces which can be revealed only by “scientific” analyses.Therefore, many social scientists have agreed on one general guidingprinciple: their main function is to reveal more or less constraining orenabling social “regularities” (or “social structures”) to non-specialists.

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Basically, many sociologists have shown individuals they are not “free”since their lives and actions are fully or partially determined by variouspre-existing social “regularities” having causal powers, and it is thosecausal powers which explain the durability (and solidity) of these “struc-tures.” If we push this logic to its logical limit, we end up with atautological cycle of social reproduction where the “structures” deter-mine the actions which reproduce the “structures.” In order to explainsocial change, sociologists added that this circle of social reproductioncan be broken by individuals using their “agency” (their capacity to act ina different way) through some moments of “collective effervescence” or“corporate action,” for example.

Regardless of the lack of one Kuhnian “paradigm,” this kind of view hasappeared to many of us as solid ontological foundation assuring thedistinctiveness and legitimacy of sociology as a “scientific” discipline.Sociology found an “object” (the causal powers of social “things” or“structures”); this “object” is different from those of psychology andbiology; and it can be studied in “scientific” ways, by staying away fromphilosophical speculations and pure deductions. In this spirit, methodo-logical tools have been developed to reveal these social “regularities”which are supposed to show that individuals and groups are determinedby “structural” forces like “society,” “social systems” or “class positions.”Among other things, variable analyses have become prevalent practices ofthis kind. For many sociologists, this is what “scientific” sociology is allabout. As with the classical study by Durkheim on the social causes ofsuicide, even the most individual actions are seen as the effects of “macro”forces. Specific, contextualized actions – even suicides – become “depen-dent variables” determined by social “independent variables” like the levelof social integration or the clarity and imposition of collective norms andrules. By finding the right indicators of these “independent variables,” andby making statistical correlations (and related deductions), sociologistsbring to light the social “dependent variables” which are at play. Thistype of sociological practice would bring us closer to the natural sciences.By doing so, it would play a key positive role in the common games ofdistinction and imitation of modern sciences. The use of mathematics, thesearch for regularities by “controlling” “variables” and the importation ofsome scientific words such as “laboratory,” social “laws,” and “prediction”gives credibility to disciplines which have often been pejoratively labelledas “soft,” “immature,” and “impure” sciences. There is little doubt thatDurkheim, for instance, was well aware of these games of distinction and

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imitation dominated by the more prestigious “hard” or “pure” sciences,such as physics or chemistry, when he was trying to establish sociology as a“scientific” discipline in France.

It is also well known that this type of sociology leads to the problematicidea that human beings would be determined in some mechanical wayslike gases or any other entity with no reflexivity. In effect, other socialthinkers, such as M. Weber, A. Schultz, H. Blumer, G. H. Mead, andP. Winch, rejected this type of sociology by insisting on the importance ofreflexivity, values, perceptions of the reality, and the creativity of action. Inspite of all of this; despite the fact that specific behaviors cannot be simplyand perfectly predicted due to the complexity of social life in the realworld, but only within the limits of probability; and in spite of all thedifficulties one encounters when trying to control “independent variables”without the kind of laboratories specialists can use in some naturalsciences; many social scientists have shown incredible resilience and ima-gination to show that C happens at X% when B is self-acting on A.

This kind of positivistic knowledge is useful in many ways. For instance,and if and when it is true of course, who could seriously argue that we donot need to know, everything else being equal, that a state of anomieincreases the number of suicides in any one society? The fact remains that,in spite of its real or potential relevance, this type of sociology has beencontested since the very beginning of its implementation. In few words,many competent sociologists have argued that more or less deterministicsocial thinkers based their sociological explanations on false and unneces-sary ontological premises. And by doing so, they promulgate distortedperceptions of our social life which seriously limits the positive contribu-tions – or the “promises” – of sociology. G. Tarde was among the first toprotest against this type of sociology, and more precisely againstDurkheim and his idea of “external” and “constraining” “social things.”For him, by detaching the “society” from the individuals who co-produceit, by seeing it as “external” to the individuals, Durkheim was proposing ametaphysical concept which cannot be accepted in any type of scientificand empirical discipline. It was a fundamental mistake, Tarde said. Thismistake can only create a problematic gap between sociologists and thestudy of relations between people at the so-called “micro” level – the onlylevel where social phenomena are made.

In one way or another, this is the kind of fundamental issues that areraised by these colleagues who are “rediscovering” the texts of Tarde thesedays. This “rediscovery” has been made through the new editions and

FOREWORD ix

“rediscovery” of the works of Tarde in recent decades, but it also hap-pened through the works of other contemporary social thinkers who haveexplicitly (Deleuze, Latour) or maybe implicitly (Foucault) been influ-enced by G. Tarde. This is one reason why this book of S. Tonkonoff isimportant and relevant for us today. Social thinkers like Deleuze andLatour quickly presented some general ideas of Tarde. S. Tonkonoff offersus more detailed explanations about Tarde’s sociological ideas and theirimportance. By doing this, he also helps us to see the works of Deleuzeand Foucault from another angle which has not been deeply explored inthe literature so far. This is not an easy task since Tarde’s (and Deleuze’s aswell) writing style makes their explanations quite difficult to deal with. Itcan be quite obscure and almost annoying even for the most patientreader. However, S. Tonkonoff proposes a process of clarification ofsome of the most important and interrelated sociological ideas of Tarde,Deleuze, and Foucault.

Furthermore, S. Tonkonoff is not trying to save Tarde from some formof injustice related to his marginalization in the academic world. The idea isto do this rediscovery work in order to improve our understanding of oursocial life. We might disagree with some of its explanations, but this book isrelevant in part because it invites us to come back to some fundamentalissues in sociology, to revise some typical concepts such as “institutions,”“social forces,” “social fields,” “society,” “social system,” and “organiza-tion”; and to discuss unusual sociological ones such as “flows,” “rizhome,”“imitation,” “infiniteness,” and “desire.” It is an invitation to discuss basicand general views, principles, and concepts which guide our sociologicalpractices. More precisely, S. Tonkonoff is proposing another “image” of oursocial universe based on a different sociological “grammar” by using viewsand concepts offered by Tarde and coupling them with some ideas andconcepts of G. Deleuze and M. Foucault. Of course, this work is incom-plete. Many other links should be made. His quite abstract conception of“social field,” for instance, should eventually be compared to the moreconcrete ones of P. Bourdieu and others. Besides, other compatibleapproaches could be integrated. The incorporation of the work ofB. Latour is an obvious missing link in this respect. Many other worksshould eventually be integrated, such as the “processual-relational” worksof A. N. Whitehead, the work of M. Weber, the works of many symbolicinteractionists (Blumer, Becker, Strauss . . . ), the “relational manifesto” ofM. Emirbayer, and definitely O. Pyyhtonen’s recent book More-Than-

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Human Sociology. Besides, a lot of work also needs to be done at themethodological level in order to eventually operationalize the approach.

Overall, in this logic, the main goal is to come with one not-so-newsociological “grammar” based on “relational-processual” guiding worldviews, principles, concepts, and methods made and used for the study ofthe emergences, metamorphoses, and disintegrations of multiple socialphenomena. This processual approach is one of the major tendenciesone can find in relational sociology these days, as we will see in theupcoming Palgrave Handbook of Relational Sociology (Dépelteau 2017).But this approach, so far, is a more or less disorganized work-in-progress.The publication of this book should be seen as one action in a longer chainof interactions, where some of the most important principles, world views,and concepts of this emerging “relational-processual” sociology are devel-oped by analyzing the works of G. Tarde, G. Deleuze, and M. Foucault.This is not the only way to do it, but it is certainly an interesting one.

To conclude, and beyond all the concepts presented and defined in thisbook, I think we can identify the following general principles and ideas forthis emerging “relational-processual” sociology:

• This is a deeply “relational-processual” sociology since social phenom-ena are seen as relations between individuals and what is beyond orbelow them. As Sergio himself suggested to me after reading thedraft of this foreword (his own words):

This “relational-processual” sociology sees social phenomena as a relationbetween collective flows or streams. These flows would be trans- andinfra- individual currents, passing trough biological bodies, making“in them,” in the bodies, individuals. Individual then would be asecondary category regarding these impersonal flows. Rumors, fashions,currents of opinion are flows, but also traditions and customs are flows.The first ones are fast repetitions of a model, the second ones are slowerrepetitions of a model – and both of them are impersonal processes. Thereal relations and interactions are between these flows. Every individualwould be an intersection of many of both types of flows: the specificrelation between them in each body produces each individual as a specificpsycho-social reality. These flows can also “unmake” individuals, andthey do it many times a day. An “un-made” individual is somebody in a“state of multitude”. This is what I’m writing for the conclusions.

FOREWORD xi

In this sense, and generally speaking, this is an invitation to change ourperception of “society.” We should abandon “panoramic” views of“society” in favor of “the detailed exploration of the elemental modes ofproduction, reproduction, and metamorphosis of social assemblages”(p. 41).

• The old dualism between “holism” and “individualism” is replacedby the study of the “social” defined as a “plural and heterogeneousfield of interactions” (p. 46).

• This study of the modes of production of “social assemblages” leadsus to the observation “the real agents and the real actions,” at the so-called “micro-level”. This is an invitation to accept the high com-plexity of social life where the “agents” and the “real actions” are“infinitely varied and infinitely small” (p. 41).

• The analysis of larger social phenomena is not rejected, but sociolo-gists are invited to study their “formation, developments, and trans-formations” though the analyses of “the interpersonal bonds[understood as mentioned above] in its local details” (p. 41).

• This is a “processual” sociology, meaning that social phenomena areseen as being dynamic, fluid social processes.

• It means we are talking about a social universe where “regularities”coming from similar actions and relations can be disrupted, altered,or destroyed by “inventions” of ways to interact, to normalize beha-viors and bodies, etc. It is a universe in constant tension due toprocesses of “imitation,” “counter-imitation,” and “invention”(p. 58).

• A such, History is not made of one “single drama” (like class strug-gles) but by “innumerable scenes of duels, conjunctions, and propa-gations, multiplied on various scales” (p. 75). And in this respect,History has no ending. It is open. It is a constant flow of unpredict-able and multiple interactions (where power is a relation and not asubstance one possesses like a “capital” or aces in a game of cards).

• This is also a sociology connected to the problems of “ordinary”people (and others), where people can imitate with a low level ofreflexivity or make “inventions” to find “specific responses to pro-blems, and even to specific ‘matters or urgency’” (p. 77).

Hopefully, colleagues interested by the emergence of a “relational-pro-cessual” sociology will read this book carefully and make connections with

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other compatible social thinkers. Thanks to these efforts, we could end upwith one form of collective and relatively “disciplined” (in a non-politicalway) production of sociological knowledge, coming from the (critical anddynamic) use of a coherent set of principles, concepts, and methodologicaltools used to produce realistic, critical, and pragmatic sociological knowl-edge. We can also sincerely hope that other sociologists will carefullyanalyze this book in order to show the limits of this type of sociology. Ahealthy dose of controversy is also good for sociology.

FOREWORD xiii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am especially grateful to Dr François Dépelteau whose generosityallowed me to participate in his relational enterprise, and whose textswere very inspiring for undertaking the task of writing this book.

I would like to thank Martina Lassalle for her research assistanceand her generous work on many aspects of the manuscript. I wouldalso like to thank Gaby Garton, Daniel Tunnard, and Martina Lassallefor working on the translations of these texts. Sebastian Scherer, PabloNavarro, Alejandro Ramas, and Ramiro Gonzalez Gainza have all beenparticularly supportive and helpful throughout the writing process. Inaddition, I have been extraordinarily fortunate to receive the criticalcomments of Martin Vignola and Eduard Levitin. Many colleagues andfriends from the Structuralism and Poststructuralism Studies Grouphave also been key parts of this publication.

As well, I would like to thank Dr Jorge Thieberger without whosesupport and suggestions this book would not have been possible.

It is also worth mentioning the decisive institutional support ofCONICET-Argentina and Buenos Aires University.

My grateful thanks, too, to the Palgrave Macmillan peer reviewer forthe enthusiastic opinions and suggestions given, which have furtherimproved the work. I am deeply grateful, also, to Alexis Nelson,Palgrave Macmillan’s commissioning editor, for her attention and sugges-tions, and to Kyra Saniewski, Palgrave Macmillan’s editorial assistant, forher helpful information and responses.

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Finally, I would like to thank Current Sociology and Antípodas journalsfor letting me reformulate two articles which are now part of this book.These articles are:

– “A New Social Physic: The Sociology of Gabriel Tarde and ItsLegacy,” Current Sociology, May 2013, vol. 61, 3: pp. 267–282.

– “Individuo, multitud y cambio social. Una aproximación a la teoríasocial de Gabriel Tarde,” Antípodas, Enero–Abril de 2016,pp. 131–149.

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CONTENTS

Microsociology, Micropolitics, and Microphysics:Toward the Paradigm of Infinitesimal Difference 1The Whole and the Parts: From Compte to Structuralism 6The (Micro)parts and the (Un)whole 10A Science of the Infinite 13Another Beginning: From Tarde to Post-structuralism 17Notes 20

Tarde and the Infinitesimal Sociology 25Elemental Sociology 28Polygenesis, Dromology, and Cartographic Knowledge 32Societal Ensembles 35Tarde Today 39Notes 42

Individuals, Publics, and Crowds. Where Does SocialChange Come From? 45Social Life as Somnambulism 47Magnetism and Urbanization 49Crowds and Publics 52Opposition and Invention 57Invention and Inventors 60Micro-Politics of Conversation 62Notes 63

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Diffusion or War? Foucault as a Reader of Tarde 67The Nietzsche Hypothesis (The War Model) 69The Old Cartographer 72The New Cartographer 76Tardean Solutions to Foucauldian Problems? 80The Tarde Hypothesis 84Notes 87

Desire, Assemblages, Machines. Deleuze et al. 91A New Step (and Its Shadow) 94Machinic Assemblages and Abstract Machines 97Lines, Flows, Escapes 101Contagion: Tarde in Deleuze (and Vice Versa) 105Desire and Society 110Notes 111

The Reason for Being of the Finite 115Social Field: What Could Be a Pure Relation? 118What Is a Social Force? 123Ensemble/Device/Assemblage 129Image-Movement, Cartographic Knowledge,and Molecular Change 134Notes 139

Bibliography 141

Index 149

xviii CONTENTS