To the sources of solidarity

While in recent years, many works have been working to demonstrate the news of republican thought developed in France under the III^e Republic, the initiative to publish the thesis of Célestin Bouglé entitled Egalitarian ideas provides a necessary clarification on several points. This work, some of which will inevitably appear as dated is however lit by a long introduction by Serge Audier, “ The secular and solidarity republic: Célestin Bouglé’s sociological commitment. »»

The original challenge of Célestin Bouglé’s work consisted, as Audier reminds us of treating “ as a sociologist of the advent of egalitarian ideas. ” So, “ the task that is bugged in Egalitarian ideas is (…) Claire: justify, by mobilizing in particular the tools of contemporary sociology – Spencer, Durkheim, Tarde, but also Simmel – La Grande Ambition formulated in Of democracy in Americain order to shed light on the egalitarian process of modernity. »(P.22) It is perhaps this question of search for a bugle herself which will surprise the contemporary reader most. Bouglé’s ambition was nothing less than rereading in a sociological perspective the great work of Tocqueville and to pose as a scientific problem the thesis on the future of Western civilization it contains.

Beyond the editorial work of provision of an important text in the history of sociological ideas, the merit of this book is to give the privileged actor and witness III^e Célestin republic bugged a much more complex and nuanced portrait than that that Jean-Fabien Spitz had given in the passage he had devoted to him in The republican moment in France. Far from being only a simple disciple of Durkheim, Célestin Bouglé was first very influenced by his professor Henry Michel who was one of the most important disciples of Charles Renouvier, major philosopher of “ neo-criticism »And theorist of the philosophical foundations of III^e Republic ; Before developing criticism from Durkheim’s thought which will be based on German sociology, especially that of Simmel. On the other hand, he was an important man of action that Serge Audier resituit “ At the heart of doctrinal conflicts to define the foundations of the Republic. “(P. 19) Célestin Bouglé holds his central and original position in the solidarist constellation because he was” Both marked by the neo-criticism of Renouvier or Michel, and by Durkheimian sociology. “It would be” The link between these currents which he tries to identify the most valid contribution. »(P.19)

Célestin Bouglé was thus at the heart of the solidarist current. This is a political and social doctrine forged at the end of XIX^e century as a third way between liberal individualism of strict observance and collectivist socialism. It is around the central figure of Léon Bourgeois that solidarism, as a doctrine, acquires a theoretical and political consistency. Célestin Bouglé gave in Solidarism A political and sociological extension at the work of Léon Bourgeois.

In the same way, the author re -examines, as at the turn of an elucidation of the philosophical and sociological thought of Bouglé, the two pivots of the draft ideological foundation of the Republic – secularism and solidarity – and its dominant doctrinal influences. Serge Audier is located there halfway, the proponents of the domination of the positivist influence on republican thought (thesis that has developed in the wake of Claude Nicolet’s work on The republican idea in France) On the one hand and the thesis of Jean-Fabien Spitz which denies any influence on the Comptism in the development of an original doctrinal synthesis. The nature of solidarism is thus discussed in its relations with religion, law, individualism, socialism, etc. Serge Audier even goes so far as to develop his remarks by considerations on republican patriotism, the French exception in republican culture but also the role of the Dreyfus affair or the news of solidarism in contemporary debates. Intellectuals refer to this current and more particularly to the concept of solidarity to restore a foundation to redistribution policies and to a re -evaluation of this notion in public and political debate. On the other hand, political currents are linked to the founding fathers of the solidarist ideology to refound republican institutions and spread the republican spirit.

To go further:

The research team on social inequalities at the Maurice Halbwachs Center publishes online a file of readings on solidarism and solidarity:

For the political news of solidarism, we will refer to the site of the social circle Edgar Quinet: