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Abstract

Auguste Comte invented the word ‘sociologie’ in 1839, but the discipline only became a reality with Émile Durkheim in 1895 who defined the science against Herbert Spencer, the British writer, and against the British anthropologists. He managed to carry over the definition of the discipline until his death in 1917, against the alternative British claims. At the time, the science was seen as a French specialty because it claimed the superiority of God-Society over the individual and was introduced in Britain by Malinowski. The interwar years saw a resurgence of the British claims over the discipline with a new, autonomous version of it. However, it split over the Durkheimian ideas.

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Rocquin, B. (2019). Sociologie, a French Science?. In: British Sociologists and French 'Sociologues' in the Interwar Years . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10913-4_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10913-4_2

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