A társadalomtudományok és a nemzeti szellem. Megjegyzések a nemzeti jelleg „intézményes” megközelítéséről néhány 19. századi francia társadalomtudósná
Social Sciences and National Spirit: Notes on the ‘Institutionalised’ Approaches of National Character in the Works of Nineteenth-Century French Socia

Summary/Abstract: This study explores how certain nineteenth-century French social scientists describe the ‘national’ characteristics of their own scientific contributions. The aim of the article is to point out that those dominant trends of the century that discuss the universal idea of ‘sciences’ and the significance of the ‘national question’ include a separate type of discourse, whereby these two fields are reconciled from the angle of sciences or science policy. This discourse, often a consequence of political events itself, strives to assess those criteria, which define the operation and organisation of social sciences in a given society, and national differences between these are revealed exactly as a result of this approach. In this context, while retaining their characteristics, questions of ‘nation’ and ‘national spirit’ are subordinated to the examination of those criteria of scientific knowledge production that shape these disciplines in a given society. While this study demonstrates the presence of this discourse in the works of eminent French social scientists (Durkheim, Renan, Monod, Fustel de Coulanges), it discusses the ‘institutionalised’ approach of national characteristics from this specific context.

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