Political Ontological Analysis of Classical French Sociological Thought: Auguste Comte and Émile Durkheim

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2024-1-10
Yılmaz, Ali Orhan
This study conducts a political ontological analysis of classical French sociology. The political instability that emerged in Europe with the emergence of crowds into the political arena after the French Revolution was a situation, which is required to be reflected by the thinkers of the period. Thus, classical French sociology, which is constructed in the nineteenth century, was one of the responses to this situation of political instability. Political ontological analysis is concerned with the existence and nature of political entities by revealing the assumptions that shape political reality and provides a fundamental perspective on the nature of politics by examining how power relations and material conditions affect political concepts and structures. Within this analytical framework, the study methodologically aims to reveal the conditions of possibility of classical French sociology within the framework of power relations, political discourse, and stances by employing genealogical and textual analysis. Firstly, a genealogical analysis of these traditions of thought was conducted in order to investigate the conditions of possibility of the structure constructed by classical French sociology, nourished by the Enlightenment and conservative thought tradition with integrating the concept of social problem. In the following chapters, the works of Auguste Comte and Émile Durkheim, who are defined as the founding figures of classical French sociology, are discussed. These works were subjected to textual analysis, a method used to critically examine the texts and reveal underlying meanings and political assumptions.
Citation Formats
A. O. Yılmaz, “Political Ontological Analysis of Classical French Sociological Thought: Auguste Comte and Émile Durkheim,” Ph.D. - Doctoral Program, Middle East Technical University, 2024.