Georges Eugène Sorel (; ; 2 November 1847 – 29 August 1922) was a
French social thinker,
political theorist
A political theorist is someone who engages in constructing or evaluating political theory, including political philosophy. Theorists may be academics or independent scholars. Here the most notable political theorists are categorized by their ...
,
historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...
, and later
journalist
A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...
. He has inspired theories and movements grouped under the name of
Sorelianism
Sorelianism is advocacy for or support of the ideology and thinking of French revolutionary syndicalist Georges Sorel. Sorelians oppose bourgeois democracy, the developments of the 18th century, the secular spirit, and the French Revolution, whil ...
. His social and political philosophy owed much to his reading of
Proudhon
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (, , ; 15 January 1809, Besançon – 19 January 1865, Paris) was a French socialist,Landauer, Carl; Landauer, Hilde Stein; Valkenier, Elizabeth Kridl (1979) 959 "The Three Anticapitalistic Movements". ''European Social ...
,
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
,
Giambattista Vico
Giambattista Vico (born Giovan Battista Vico ; ; 23 June 1668 – 23 January 1744) was an Italian philosopher, rhetorician, historian, and jurist during the Italian Enlightenment. He criticized the expansion and development of modern rationali ...
,
Henri Bergson
Henri-Louis Bergson (; 18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) was a French philosopherHenri Bergson. 2014. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 13 August 2014, from https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/61856/Henri-Bergson (whose lectures at the
Collège de France
The Collège de France (), formerly known as the ''Collège Royal'' or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment (''grand établissement'') in France. It is located in Paris ne ...
he attended), and later
William James
William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States.
James is considered to be a leading thinker of the lat ...
. His notion of the power of
myth
Myth is a folklore genre consisting of Narrative, narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or Origin myth, origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not Objectivity (philosophy), ...
in collective agency inspired
socialists
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the eco ...
,
anarchists
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessari ...
,
Marxists
Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectic ...
, and
fascists
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and th ...
.
[Sternhell, Zeev, Mario Sznajder, Maia Ashéri (1994). "Georges Sorel and the Antimaterialist Revision of Marxism". In: ''The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution''. Princeton University Press ] Together with his defense of violence, the power of myth is the contribution for which he is most often remembered.
Politically he evolved from his early
liberal-conservative
Liberal conservatism is a political ideology combining conservative policies with liberal stances, especially on economic issues but also on social and ethical matters, representing a brand of political conservatism strongly influenced by libe ...
positions towards
Marxism
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
,
social-democracy
Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote soc ...
, and eventually
syndicalism
Syndicalism is a Revolutionary politics, revolutionary current within the Left-wing politics, left-wing of the Labour movement, labor movement that seeks to unionize workers Industrial unionism, according to industry and advance their demands t ...
. Between 1909 and 1910 he was marginally involved with
Charles Maurras
Charles-Marie-Photius Maurras (; ; 20 April 1868 – 16 November 1952) was a French author, politician, poet, and critic. He was an organizer and principal philosopher of ''Action Française'', a political movement that is monarchist, anti-parl ...
'
Action Française
Action may refer to:
* Action (narrative), a literary mode
* Action fiction, a type of genre fiction
* Action game, a genre of video game
Film
* Action film, a genre of film
* ''Action'' (1921 film), a film by John Ford
* ''Action'' (1980 f ...
, and between 1911 and 1913 he wrote for the politically transversal ''L'Indépendance'', established together with
Édouard Berth
Édouard Berth (1875–1939) was a theorist of French syndicalism
Syndicalism is a revolutionary current within the left-wing of the labor movement that seeks to unionize workers according to industry and advance their demands through str ...
– one of Sorel's main disciples – and
Georges Valois
Georges Valois (real name ''Alfred-Georges Gressent''; 7 October 1878 – February 1945) was a French journalist and national syndicalist politician. He was a member of the French Resistance and died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. ...
, closer to Maurrassian circles. After a long silence during the war, Sorel came out in favour of Lenin and moved towards
Bolshevist
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
positions until his death in 1922.
His legacy in the interwar period embraced both ends of the political spectrum, as many former syndicalists welcomed the emerging
fascism
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy an ...
. According to historian
Zeev Sternhell
Zeev Sternhell ( he, זאב שטרנהל; 10 April 1935 – 21 June 2020) was a Polish-born Israeli historian, political scientist, commentator on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and writer. He was one of the world's leading theorists of the ...
, Sorel's revision of Marxism broke the necessity of the link between revolution and working class, opening up the possibility of replacing the proletariat with the national community.
Biography
Born in
Cherbourg
Cherbourg (; , , ), nrf, Chèrbourg, ) is a former commune and subprefecture located at the northern end of the Cotentin peninsula in the northwestern French department of Manche. It was merged into the commune of Cherbourg-Octeville on 28 Feb ...
as the son of a businessman, he moved to
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
in 1864 to attend the
Collège Rollin
In France, secondary education is in two stages:
* ''Collèges'' () cater for the first four years of secondary education from the ages of 11 to 15.
* ''Lycées'' () provide a three-year course of further secondary education for children between ...
, before entering the
École Polytechnique
École may refer to:
* an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée)
* École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France
* École, Savoi ...
a year later. In 1869 he became chief
engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...
with the
Department of Public Works
This list indicates government departments in various countries dedicated to public works or infrastructure.
See also
* Public works
* Ministry or Board of Public Works, the imperial Chinese ministry overseeing public projects from the Tang ...
. Stationed in
Corsica
Corsica ( , Upper , Southern ; it, Corsica; ; french: Corse ; lij, Còrsega; sc, Còssiga) is an island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 18 regions of France. It is the fourth-largest island in the Mediterranean and lies southeast of ...
until June 1871, he was subsequently posted to various places in southern France - Albi, Gap, and Draguignan. Between 1876 and 1879 he was in Mostaganem, in colonial
Algeria
)
, image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, capital = Algiers
, coordinates =
, largest_city = capital
, relig ...
, before moving to
Perpignan
Perpignan (, , ; ca, Perpinyà ; es, Perpiñán ; it, Perpignano ) is the prefecture of the Pyrénées-Orientales department in southern France, in the heart of the plain of Roussillon, at the foot of the Pyrenees a few kilometres from the ...
, where he spent the last years of his career until his retirement in 1892. In 1891, he was awarded the Légion d'honneur. Immediately after retiring, he moved with his partner Marie David to
Boulogne-sur-Seine
Boulogne-Billancourt (; often colloquially called simply Boulogne, until 1924 Boulogne-sur-Seine, ) is a wealthy and prestigious commune in the Parisian area, located from its centre. It is a subprefecture of the Hauts-de-Seine department and th ...
, near Paris, where he stayed until his death in 1922.
Beginning in the second half of the 1880s, he published articles in various fields (
hydrology
Hydrology () is the scientific study of the movement, distribution, and management of water on Earth and other planets, including the water cycle, water resources, and environmental watershed sustainability. A practitioner of hydrology is calle ...
,
architecture
Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...
,
philosophy of science
Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultim ...
,
psychophysics
Psychophysics quantitatively investigates the relationship between physical stimuli and the sensations and perceptions they produce. Psychophysics has been described as "the scientific study of the relation between stimulus and sensation" or, m ...
,
political history
Political history is the narrative and survey of political events, ideas, movements, organs of government, voters, parties and leaders. It is closely related to other fields of history, including diplomatic history, constitutional history, social ...
, and
philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
) displaying the influence of
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
, as well as those of
Hippolyte Taine
Hippolyte Adolphe Taine (, 21 April 1828 – 5 March 1893) was a French historian, critic and philosopher. He was the chief theoretical influence on French naturalism, a major proponent of sociological positivism and one of the first practition ...
and
Ernest Renan
Joseph Ernest Renan (; 27 February 18232 October 1892) was a French Orientalist and Semitic scholar, expert of Semitic languages and civilizations, historian of religion, philologist, philosopher, biblical scholar, and critic. He wrote influe ...
. In 1893, he publicly announced his position as a Marxist and a socialist. He moved to working on some of France's first Marxist journals ( ''L’Ère nouvelle'' and ''Le Devenir Social)'' and to participating, on the revisionist side, in the debate launched by
Eduard Bernstein
Eduard Bernstein (; 6 January 1850 – 18 December 1932) was a German social democratic Marxist theorist and politician. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), Bernstein had held close association to Karl Marx and Friedric ...
. A supporter of
Alfred Dreyfus
Alfred Dreyfus ( , also , ; 9 October 1859 – 12 July 1935) was a French artillery officer of Jewish ancestry whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most polarizing political dramas in modern French history. ...
during the ''
affaire,'' Sorel later was disappointed, much like his friend
Charles Péguy
Charles Pierre Péguy (; 7 January 1873 – 5 September 1914) was a French poet, essayist, and editor. His two main philosophies were socialism and nationalism. By 1908 at the latest, after years of uneasy agnosticism, he had become a believing b ...
, by the political consequences of the trial.
In the beginning of the 20th century he began arguing for the incompatibility between socialism and parliamentary democracy, moving towards syndicalist positions. Through his writings in Enrico Leone's ''Il Divenire sociale'' and
Hubert Lagardelle
Hubert Lagardelle (8 July 1874 – 20 September 1958) was a pioneer of French revolutionary syndicalism. He regularly authored reviews for the Plans magazine, was co-founder of the journal Prélude, and Minister of Labour in the Vichy regime.
...
's ''Mouvement socialiste'', he contributed around 1905 to the theoretical elaboration of revolutionary syndicalism. In 1905, his most famous text, ''
Reflections on Violence
''Reflections on Violence'' (french: Réflexions sur la violence, links=no), published in 1908, is a book by the French revolutionary syndicalist Georges Sorel on class struggle and revolution. Sorel is known for his theory that political revolu ...
'', began appearing in the ''Divenire Sociale''. It was published in book form in 1908 by ''Pages Libres'', and was followed the same year by ''Illusions du Progrès''.
In the wake of the
1909 defeat of the syndicalist wing of the
Confédération Générale du Travail
The General Confederation of Labour (french: Confédération Générale du Travail, CGT) is a national trade union center, founded in 1895 in the city of Limoges. It is the first of the five major French confederations of trade unions.
It is ...
(CGT), Sorel became close for a period in 1909–1910 with
Charles Maurras
Charles-Marie-Photius Maurras (; ; 20 April 1868 – 16 November 1952) was a French author, politician, poet, and critic. He was an organizer and principal philosopher of ''Action Française'', a political movement that is monarchist, anti-parl ...
’
Action française
Action may refer to:
* Action (narrative), a literary mode
* Action fiction, a type of genre fiction
* Action game, a genre of video game
Film
* Action film, a genre of film
* ''Action'' (1921 film), a film by John Ford
* ''Action'' (1980 f ...
, while sharing neither its nationalism nor its political program. This collaboration inspired the founders of the
Cercle Proudhon
''Cercle Proudhon'' (; French for Proudhon Circle) was a national syndicalist political group in France. The group was inspired by Georges Sorel, Charles Maurras and a selective reading of anarchist theorist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.
History
Founded ...
, which brought together revolutionary syndicalists and monarchists. Sorel himself, with Jean Variot, founded a journal in 1911 called ''L'Indépendance'', although disagreements, in part over nationalism, soon ended the project.
Ferociously opposed to the 1914
Union sacrée The Sacred Union (french: Union Sacrée, ) was a political truce in France in which the left-wing agreed, during World War I, not to oppose the government or call any strikes. Made in the name of patriotism, it stood in opposition to the pledge made ...
political truce, Sorel denounced the war and in 1917 praised the
Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and ad ...
. He wrote for an official
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
publication,
Russian Soviet Government Bureau
The Russian Soviet Government Bureau (1919-1921), sometimes known as the "Soviet Bureau," was an unofficial diplomatic organization established by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in the United States during the Russian Civil War. T ...
, calling Lenin "the greatest theoretician of socialism since Marx and a statesman whose genius recalls that of Peter the Great." He wrote numerous small pieces for Italian newspapers defending the
Bolsheviks
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
. Whereas Sorel's support for Bolshevism is a matter of abundant public record, his much-talked-about interest in the newborn fascist movement is only confirmed by nationalist sources from the interwar period. According to the Maurrassian intellectual Jean Variot, in March 1921 Sorel confided to him that "Mussolini is a man no less extraordinary than Lenin. He, too, is a political genius, of a greater reach than all the statesmen of the day, with the only exception of Lenin…" Some judgments expressed in Sorel's correspondences actually seem to contradict the belief that he was politically sympathetic with fascism. Most notably he wrote to the liberal journalist Mario Missiroli in June 1921, “Things in Italy seem to me to be going very badly
..The disorder of the fascists, who suppress the state of which
iolitticlaims to be the intransigent defender, could well bring Italy back to the times of the Middle Ages. It does not seem that the Fascists are more balanced than the Futurists."
Sorel's Marxism
Though Sorel engaged with Marxism for virtually every one of his years as an active intellectual, his belonging to the Marxist tradition is contested. Often associated with an heroic, apocalyptic, and ultimately aesthetic Marxism, Sorel is by some thought more as a thinker of decadence. Nonetheless, analysis of his engagement with Marx show him to be preoccupied more with the epistemological subtleties of historical materialism than with an impending moral collapse. Absorbing the twin influences of
Henri Bergson
Henri-Louis Bergson (; 18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) was a French philosopherHenri Bergson. 2014. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 13 August 2014, from https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/61856/Henri-Bergson and Italian idealists, Sorel elaborated a Marxism rejecting economic and historical determinism, and seeing itself not as social science but as an historically-situated ideology.
Anti-determinism
Though Sorel had been a moderate conservative before turning to
Marxism
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
in the 1890s, his interest in the doctrine was dictated by scientific more than by political motivations. In a context in which Marx's work remained relatively unknown and obscure, Sorel sought to develop the theory in order to prove that, as he wrote to Benedetto Croce in 1895, "socialism is worthy of belonging to the modern scientific movement". This involved rejecting the standard French objections to Marxism: historical and economic determinism.
Through readings of
Giambattista Vico
Giambattista Vico (born Giovan Battista Vico ; ; 23 June 1668 – 23 January 1744) was an Italian philosopher, rhetorician, historian, and jurist during the Italian Enlightenment. He criticized the expansion and development of modern rationali ...
and exchanges with
Antonio Labriola
Antonio Labriola (; 2 July 1843 – 12 February 1904) was an Italian Marxist theoretician and philosopher. Although an academic philosopher and never an active member of any Marxist political party, his thought exerted influence on many pol ...
and
Benedetto Croce
Benedetto Croce (; 25 February 1866 – 20 November 1952)
was an Italian idealist philosopher, historian, and politician, who wrote on numerous topics, including philosophy, history, historiography and aesthetics. In most regards, Croce was a lib ...
, Sorel came to an understanding of Marxism as a theory of class agency embedded in institutions. Given the essential creativity of the collective agency at the heart of historical development, it followed that Marxism was unable to formulate predictions based on supposed laws of historical development: "History," wrote Sorel in 1897, "is entirely in the past; there is no way of transforming it into a logical combination allowing us to predict the future." Moreover, the unfolding of this collective creative agency could not be entirely deduced by the material conditions in which it took place, but had to take into account legal, ideological, and cultural factors. As he wrote in 1898:
Nor do I believe that it is in conformity with a Marxist spirit to decompose facts into various elements: economic ones first, subsequently juridical and political ones. ... It is in the form that the distinction can be established, but only for our intellectual necessities; in history, as well as in reason, we have unity; but in order to carry on a scientific study, it is necessary to establish classifications.
Reformism and syndicalism
These theoretical preferences yielded a mildly voluntaristic Marxism. While rejecting, first on scientific and later on political grounds, the inevitability of capitalist collapse, and arguing against the possibility of laws of history in virtue of his agency-based view of social development, he nonetheless tendentially rejected insurrectionary politics. He insisted, instead, on the institutional development of the proletariat, on the capacity of unions to become not only sites of resistance to capital, but more importantly spaces in which new, post-capitalist social relations could emerge.
To reduce unions to being mere associations of resistance means opposing a formidable barrier to the development of the proletariat; it means putting it at the mercy of the influence of bourgeois demagogues; it means preventing it from elaborating the principles of a new right in line with its way of life; it is, in one word, to deny to the proletariat the possibility of becoming a class for itself.
While until 1900 he had believed that this path of institutional development was best served through political engagement in parliamentary democracy, his ideas changed in the beginning of the century. Partly in reaction to the republican triumph in the
1902 French elections, and partly in virtue of new analyses on the emergence of
welfare capitalism
Welfare capitalism is capitalism that includes social welfare policies and/or the practice of businesses providing welfare services to their employees. Welfare capitalism in this second sense, or industrial paternalism, was centered on industrie ...
, he now believed that prolonged involvement in bourgeois parliamentarism would spell the death of the revolutionary working class. He thus elaborated a change of strategy, linked to the new circumstances. Since class is not produced by the evolution of capitalist economy, then a sustained practice of highly ideologically-charged social conflict—the grève prolétarienne—can maybe restore the conditions ideal for a revolutionary working class to thrive. As he explained in the ''
Reflections on Violence
''Reflections on Violence'' (french: Réflexions sur la violence, links=no), published in 1908, is a book by the French revolutionary syndicalist Georges Sorel on class struggle and revolution. Sorel is known for his theory that political revolu ...
'':
Marx supposed that the bourgeoisie had no need to be incited to employ force; but we are faced with a new and very unforeseen fact: a bourgeoisie which seeks to weaken its own strength. Must we believe that the Marxist conception is dead? By no means, because proletarian violence comes upon the scene at the very moment when the conception of social peace claims to moderate disputes; proletarian violence confines employers to their role as producers and tends to restore the class structure just when they seemed on the point of intermingling in the democratic morass.
Sorel's epistemology
Generally seen as a representative of ''fin de siècle''
irrationalism
Irrationalism is a philosophical movement that emerged in the early 19th century, emphasizing the non-rational dimension of human life. As they reject logic, irrationalists argue that instinct and feelings are superior to the reason in the researc ...
, Sorel's epistemological thinking is more accurately characterized as anti-
positivist and increasingly moving towards a proto-
pragmatist position.
Early epistemology
Though always extremely critical of
mechanistic
The mechanical philosophy is a form of natural philosophy which compares the universe to a large-scale mechanism (i.e. a machine). The mechanical philosophy is associated with the scientific revolution of early modern Europe. One of the first expo ...
explanations and conflicted over the implications of
deterministic
Determinism is a philosophical view, where all events are determined completely by previously existing causes. Deterministic theories throughout the history of philosophy have developed from diverse and sometimes overlapping motives and consi ...
approaches, Sorel, until the mid-1890s, was a scientific realist. As such, he argued against a conventionalist reading of the implications of
non-Euclidean geometries
In mathematics, non-Euclidean geometry consists of two geometries based on axioms closely related to those that specify Euclidean geometry. As Euclidean geometry lies at the intersection of metric geometry and affine geometry, non-Euclidean geo ...
, suggesting that geometry is an empirical and cumulative science. His early epistemological thought can be seen as an attempt to balance this scientific realism with the doubts over determinism and the desire to vindicate human agency. This act of balancing was achieved in his 1894 "Ancienne et Nouvelle Métaphysique". In this text, Sorel established a dualism between a deterministic natural milieu and an essentially free artificial milieu. Science belongs to the latter, and its history testifies it: all the numerous conceptual and material tools developed by scientists to enquire upon nature, all the changes that occurred in the history of science demonstrate the human creativity and historical situatedness which lie at the heart of science. Drawing upon
Henri Bergson
Henri-Louis Bergson (; 18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) was a French philosopherHenri Bergson. 2014. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 13 August 2014, from https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/61856/Henri-Bergson 's
Time and Free Will
''Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness'' (French: ''Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience'') is Henri Bergson's doctoral thesis, first published in 1889. The essay deals with the problem of free will, w ...
, he elaborated a theory of human freedom not as exemption from natural determinism but as creative capacity: "We are free in the sense that we can construct tools that have no model in the cosmic environment; we do not alter the laws of nature, but we are capable of creating sequences whose ordering is our decision"
At the same time, however, experimental practice provided to science an anchoring into the deterministic cosmic milieu, and hence could safeguard scientific realism. Experiments for Sorel do not correspond to natural conditions of observation: they are highly constructed observational settings which, nonetheless, allow a contact with nature and thus are suitable for the construction of predictive laws. Industrial practice is the initial setting of this experimental activity, which then moves on to greater refinement and abstraction in scientific laboratories. Through this conceptualisation of the experimental nature of science, Sorel can thus avoid the conventionalist implications to which his theory of the "artificial milieu" push him: "I did not only say that science is social; for one could conclude that I give the name of science to a number of widespread prejudices held by everyone; I have no intention of going back to the old mistake of universal consensus."
Vico and social science
This dualistic framework resisted until Sorel attempted to tackle the epistemological issues of the human and social sciences. As long as laws could be extracted from the deterministic natural milieu, Sorel's scientific realism was safe. But as soon as the problem of a science of society confronted him, the tensions in his epistemology reached breaking point: given that such a science must, by definition, be the science of the artificial, creatively constructed, realm, how will it be possible to extract laws from such an unpredictable environment? Sorel's initial answer is to look for pockets of deterministic behaviour inside of the social world. Thus, in his 1892 essay on
Proudhon
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (, , ; 15 January 1809, Besançon – 19 January 1865, Paris) was a French socialist,Landauer, Carl; Landauer, Hilde Stein; Valkenier, Elizabeth Kridl (1979) 959 "The Three Anticapitalistic Movements". ''European Social ...
and the science of economics, Sorel argues that while individual labour is scientifically imponderable, it assumes regular, law-like, behaviour when taken collectively, and commends Proudhon for making this point: "...in the notion of value, Proudhon gets rid of all these anti-scientific elements: products are classified not according to fancies and individual claims, but according to their position in social production." He however began to express increasing uneasiness about these deterministic solutions. In his review of
Émile Durkheim
David Émile Durkheim ( or ; 15 April 1858 – 15 November 1917) was a French sociologist. Durkheim formally established the academic discipline of sociology and is commonly cited as one of the principal architects of modern social science, al ...
's ''Rules of Sociological Method,'' he expressed serious reservations about idealtypic and statistical reasonings in the social sciences, arguing that "what is striking in the human milieu is that which is human, that is to say ''action considered from the perspective of the agent''".
To capture this collective agency in a social scientific way, Sorel had to abandon his notion of scientific explanation in terms of deterministic laws. That, he could do thanks to the reading of the work of Italian philosopher
Giambattista Vico
Giambattista Vico (born Giovan Battista Vico ; ; 23 June 1668 – 23 January 1744) was an Italian philosopher, rhetorician, historian, and jurist during the Italian Enlightenment. He criticized the expansion and development of modern rationali ...
, whose epistemology of ''verum ipsum factum'' allowed Sorel to develop an alternative account of what a scientific explanation consists in. Instead of highlighting a deterministic causal nexus, explanations in the social sciences would now be concerned with accounting for how a creative agent produces. As Sorel noted, this furnishes the epistemological grounding on which a social scientific enterprise can stand, provided that it renounces notions of atemporal laws of historical development and it focuses instead on the situated, contextual, explanation of human collective agency.
Marxism and pragmatism
In the decade following the 1896 publication of his "Study on Vico", Sorel was more absorbed by political and strategic considerations than by epistemological questions. Much of the anti-deterministic force of his epistemology found a fruitful channel of expression in Sorel's efforts to revise Marxism in a more agency-oriented fashion. Nonetheless, as early as the "Study on Vico", he had become aware of the relativistic implications of his epistemology:
Thus ideal history has perished, overcome by the development of historical research. It is now nothing but a memory... In natural science as well there is a similar sort of problem that contemporary philosophy has shown itself equally powerless to resolve. Critique of the idea of divinity has shaken the foundations of all knowledge that drew its certitude from the ancient idea of “God in nature.” Science no longer seems, today, safe from contingency, the fixed point has disappeared. It is enough to read the titles of contemporary theses on understanding and contingency to understand how it preoccupies reflective minds. Neither does it seem easy to respond to those who want to know where law roitfinds its place in materialist conceptions of history. The difficulty is the same as above: law that is immutable and rests in the divine Idea has disappeared as has science possessed totally by God. Nothing is served by denying the difficulties that result from these new principles, but this is not a reason to revive famously incorrect doctrines.
By the end of the first decade of the century, Sorel encounters American pragmatism, which he initially looked to with suspicion. In the first edition of his ''Illusions of Progress'', he calls pragmatism the "last term of bourgeois philosophy", adding that its popularity was due to its "flexibility, its garrulousness, and the cynicism of its success". Soon enough, however, a more in-depth acquaintance with the work of
William James
William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States.
James is considered to be a leading thinker of the lat ...
changed Sorel's opinion. He started calling himself a pragmatist and tried to remedy some of the relativistic consequences of James' theory of truth. His last major work in the philosophy of science was called the "Utility of Pragmatism". In it, Sorel sketched a theory of knowledge as always and irredemably situated, going close to denying the possibility of knowledge of the natural milieu.
"For some time now, a number of distinguished men of learning have observed that their studies examined not so much a world which is given to man, but that which man creates in the world. Many of those who have reflected on this situation have concluded that since it is not possible to apprehend ''natural nature'', one must be happy with insights capable of charming the imagination, with conventions useful to give a clear exposition of facts, or with empirical rules convenient for improving the practice of the usual arts. We would thus be condemned to abandon the idea of certainty which dominated ancient science. But the pragmatist declares that ''artificial nature'' interests our life at least as much as ''natural nature''. He admires its fecondity, which appears to him as infinitely growing. He asks himself how man can have such nonsensical ambitions to believe that ''artificial nature'' would not suffice to fully occupy his genius."
Works
''Contribution à l'Étude Profane de la Bible''(Paris, 1889).
* ''Le Procès de Socrate, Examen Critique des Thèses Socratiques'' (Paris: Alcan, 1889).
* ''Questions de Morale'' (Paris, 1900).
* ''L'avenir socialiste des syndicats'' (Paris, 1901).
* ''La Ruine du Monde Antique: Conception Matérialiste de l'Histoire'' (Paris, 1902).
* ''Introduction à l'Économie Moderne'' (Paris, 1903).
* ''La Crise de la Pensée Catholique'' (Paris, 1903).
* ''Le Système Historique de Renan'' (Paris, 1905–1906).
* ''Les Préoccupations Métaphysiques des Physiciens Modernes'' (Paris, 1907).
* ''La Décomposition du Marxisme'' (Paris, 1908); translation as ''The Decomposition of Marxism'' by
Irving Louis Horowitz Irving Louis Horowitz (September 25, 1929 – March 21, 2012) was an American sociologist, author, and college professor who wrote and lectured extensively in his field, and his later years came to fear that it risked being seized by left-wing ideo ...
in his ''Radicalism and the Revolt against Reason; The Social Theories of Georges Sorel'' (Humanities Press, 1961;
Southern Illinois University
Southern Illinois University is a system of public universities in the southern region of the U.S. state of Illinois. Its headquarters is in Carbondale, Illinois.
Board of trustees
The university is governed by the nine member SIU Board of Tr ...
Press, 1968).
* ''Les Illusions du Progrès'' (1908); Translated a
''The Illusions of Progress''by John and Charlotte Stanley with a foreword by
Robert A. Nisbet and an introduction by John Stanley (
University of California
The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...
Press, 1969, ).
* ''Réflexions sur la Violence'' (1908); translated as ''
Reflections on Violence
''Reflections on Violence'' (french: Réflexions sur la violence, links=no), published in 1908, is a book by the French revolutionary syndicalist Georges Sorel on class struggle and revolution. Sorel is known for his theory that political revolu ...
'' first authorised translation by
T. E. Hulme
Thomas Ernest Hulme (; 16 September 1883 – 28 September 1917) was an English critic and poet who, through his writings on art, literature and politics, had a notable influence upon modernism. He was an aesthetic philosopher and the 'father ...
(
B. W. Huebsch
Benjamin W. Huebsch (March 21, 1876 – August 7, 1964) was an American publisher in New York City in the early 20th century.
Background
Huebsch was the son of Rabbi Adolphus Huebsch, who had immigrated to the United States from Hungary in 1866 ...
, 1914; P. Smith, 1941; AMS Press, 1975, ); in an unabridged republication with an introduction by
Edward A. Shils, translated by T. E. Hulme and J. Roth (
The Free Press, 1950;
Dover Publications
Dover Publications, also known as Dover Books, is an American book publisher founded in 1941 by Hayward and Blanche Cirker. It primarily reissues books that are out of print from their original publishers. These are often, but not always, books ...
, 2004, , pbk.); edited by
Jeremy Jennings (Cambridge University Press, 1999, , hb).
* ''La Révolution Dreyfusienne'' (Paris, 1909).
* ''Matériaux d'une Théorie du Prolétariat'' (Paris, 1919).
* ''De l'Utilité du Pragmatisme'' (Paris, 1921).
* ''Lettres à Paul Delesalle 1914-1921'' (Paris, 1947).
* ''D'Aristote à Marx (L'Ancienne et la Nouvelle Métaphysique)'' (Paris: Marcel Rivière, 1935).
* ''From Georges Sorel: Essays in Socialism and Philosophy'' edited with an introduction by John L. Stanley, translated by John and Charlotte Stanley (Oxford University Press, 1976, ;
Transaction Books
Transaction Publishers was a New Jersey-based publishing house that specialized in social science books and journals. It was located on the Livingston Campus of Rutgers University. Transaction was sold to Taylor & Francis in 2016 and merged with ...
, 1987, , pbk.).
* ''From Georges Sorel: Volume 2, Hermeneutics and the Sciences'' edited by John L. Stanley, translated by John and Charlotte Stanley (Transaction Publishers, 1990, ).
* ''Commitment and Change: Georges Sorel and the idea of revolution'' essay and translations by
Richard Vernon
Richard Evelyn Vernon (7 March 1925 – 4 December 1997) was a British actor. He appeared in many feature films and television programmes, often in aristocratic or supercilious roles. Prematurely balding and greying, Vernon settled into playi ...
(University of Toronto Press, 1978, ).
* ''Social Foundations of Contemporary Economics'' translated with an introduction by John L. Stanley from ''Insegnamenti Sociali dell'Economia Contemporanea'' (Transaction Books, 1984, , cloth).
See also
*
Charter of Amiens
The Charter of Amiens (french: Charte d'Amiens) was adopted at the 9th Congress of the ''Confédération générale du travail'' (CGT) French trade-union, which took place in Amiens in October 1906. Its main proposal was the separation between the ...
, a 1906 cornerstone of the French workers' movement
*
Fascist syndicalism
Fascist syndicalism (related to national syndicalism) was a trade syndicate movement (''syndicat'' means trade union in French) that rose out of the pre-World War II provenance of the revolutionary syndicalism movement led mostly by Edmondo Ross ...
Notes
Further reading
*
Berth, Édouard (1932). ''Du "Capital" aux "Réflexions sur la Violence."'' Paris: M. Rivière.
* Brandom, Eric (2010)
"Georges Sorel, Émile Durkheim, and the Social Foundations of ''la morale'',"''Proceedings of the Western Society for French History'', Vol. XXXVIII, pp. 201–215.
* Curtis, Michael (1959). ''Three Against the Third Republic: Sorel, Barrès, and Maurras''. Princeton University Press (Greenwood Press, 1976 ; Transaction Publishers, 2010 ).
*
Dimnet, Ernest (1909)
"A French Defence of Violence,"''The Forum,'' Vol. XLII, pp. 413–422.
* Estey, J.A. (1913)
''Revolutionary Syndicalism'' London: P. S. King & Son.
* Freund, Michael (1932). ''Georges Sorel. Der Revolutionäre Konservatismus''. Frankfurt am Main: V. Klostermann.
* Gervasoni, Marco (1997). ''Georges Sorel, una Biografia Intellettuale''. Milan: Edizioni Unicopli.
* Gianinazzi, Willy (2006). ''Naissance du Mythe Moderne: Georges Sorel et la Crise de la Pensée Savante, (1889–1914)''. Paris: Ed. de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme.
* Gianinazzi, Willy (2022). ''Georges Sorel, Philosophe de l'Autonomie: Suivi d'écrits marxistes et syndicalistes de Georges Sorel''. Nancy: Arbre bleu.
* Goriély, Georges (1962). ''Le Pluralisme Dramatique de Georges Sorel''. Paris: Marcel Rivière.
* Greil, Arthur L. (1981). ''Georges Sorel and the Sociology of Virtue''. University Press of America
* Hale, J. Oron, ''The Great Illusion, 1900-1914'', Harper & Row (1971)
*
Horowitz, Irving Louis (1961). ''Radicalism and the Revolt against Reason: The Social Theories of Georges Sorel''. Humanities Press. With a translation of his essay on ''The Decomposition of Marxism''. A later edition contains a preface relating Sorel's theories to American thought in the 1960s (Southern Illinois University Press, 1968).
* Humphrey, Richard D. (1951). ''Georges Sorel, Prophet without Honor; A Study in Anti-intellectualism.'' Harvard University Press.
* Jennings, Jeremy (1990). ''Syndicalism in France: A Study of Ideas''. Macmillan in association with St Antony's College, Oxford
* Johannet, René (1921)
"L'Évolution de Georges Sorel."In: ''Itinéraires d'Intellectuels''. Paris: Nouvelle Librairie Nationale, pp. 178–226.
* Julliard, Jacques, Shlomo Sand (eds.) (1985). ''Georges Sorel en son Temps''. Paris: Le Seuil.
* Kadt, Jacques de (1938). ''Georges Sorel. Het einde van een Mythe''. Amsterdam: Contact.
*
Kołakowski, Leszek (1978). ''Main Currents of Marxism,'' Vol. 2, ''The Golden Age''. Oxford: Clarendon Press
* La Ferla, Giuseppe (1927). "L’Antintelettualismo di Georges Sorel." ''Annuario del R. Istituto Magistrale R. Bonghi'', 1925–6, Vol. IV, pp. 53–69.
* Lanzillo, Agostino (1910). ''Giorgio Sorel''. Libreria Editrice Romana.
* Levine, Louis (1914)
"The Theorists of Revolutionary Syndicalism."In: ''Syndicalism in France''. Columbia University Press, pp. 141–161.
* Meisel, James H. (1950). "A Premature Fascist? Sorel and Mussolini," ''The Western Political Quarterly'', Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 14–27.
* Meisel, James H. (1950). "Georges Sorel's Last Myth," ''The Journal of Politics'', Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 52–65.
* Mott, Rodney L. (1922)
"The Political Theory of Syndicalism,"''Political Science Quarterly'', Vol. 37, No. 1, pp. 25–40.
* Nye, Robert A. (1973). "Two Paths to a Psychology of Social Action: Gustave LeBon and Georges Sorel," ''The Journal of Modern History'', Vol. 45, No. 3, pp. 411–438.
*
Portis, Larry (1980). ''Georges Sorel''. London: Pluto Press
* Read, Herbert (1916)
"Sorel, Marx, and the War,"''The New Age'', Vol. XIX, No. 6, pp. 128–129.
* Rees, Philip, ed. (1991). ''
Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890
The ''Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890'' is a reference book by Philip Rees, on leading people in the various far right movements since 1890.
It contains entries for what the author regards as "the 500 major figures on the ...
''. New York: Simon & Schuster
* Roth, Jack J. (1963). "Revolution and Morale in Modern French Thought: Sorel and Sorelism," ''French Historical Studies'', Vol. III, No.4, pp. 205–223.
* Roth, Jack J. (1967). "The Roots of Italian Fascism: Sorel and Sorelismo," ''The Journal of Modern History'', Vol. 39, No. 1, pp. 30–45.
* Roth, Jack J. (1980). ''The Cult of Violence: Sorel and the Sorelians''. University of California Press
* Rouanet, S. P. (1964). "Irrationalism and Myth in Georges Sorel," ''The Review of Politics'', Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 45–69.
* Sand, Shlomo (1984). ''L'Illusion du Politique. Georges Sorel et le débat 1900''. Paris: La Découverte.
*
Schmidt, Carl (1939). ''The Corporate State in Action''. Oxford University Press.
* Shantz, Jeff (2004). "Georges Sorel." In: ''Encyclopedia of Modern French Thought.'' New York: Routledge, pp. 596–597.
* Shantz, Jeffrey Arnold. (2000). "A Post-Sorelian Theory of Social Movement Unity : Social Myth Reconfigured in the Work of Laclau and Mouffe," ''Dialectical Anthropology'' Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 89–108.
* Stoddart, Jane (1909)
"The Teaching of Georges Sorel."In: ''The New Socialism''. London: Hodder & Stoughton, pp. 190–198.
*
Talmon, J. L. (1970). "The Legacy of Georges Sorel," ''Encounter'', Vol. XXXIV, No. 2, pp. 47–60.
* Vernon, Richard (1973). "Rationalism and Commitment in Sorel," ''Journal of the History of Ideas'', Vol. 34, No. 3, pp. 405–420.
* Vernon, Richard (1981). "'Citizenship' in 'Industry': The Case of George Sorel," ''The American Political Science Review'', Vol. 75, No. 1, pp. 17–28.
* Vincent, K. Steven (1900). "Interpreting Georges Sorel: Defender of Virtue or Apostle of Violence," ''History of European Ideas'', Vol. XII, pp. 239–257.
* Wood, Neal (1968). "Some Reflections on Sorel and Machiavelli," ''Political Science Quarterly'', Vol. 83, No. 1, pp. 76–91.
External links
*
Georges Eugène Sorel, 1847-1922''Cahiers Georges Sorel''-''Mil neuf cent. Revue d'histoire intellectuelle''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sorel, Georges
1847 births
1922 deaths
19th-century atheists
19th-century French essayists
19th-century French male writers
19th-century French non-fiction writers
19th-century French philosophers
20th-century atheists
20th-century French essayists
20th-century French male writers
20th-century French non-fiction writers
20th-century French philosophers
Antisemitism in France
Aristotelian philosophers
Atheist philosophers
Continental philosophers
Critics of Marxism
Critics of religions
Cultural critics
École Polytechnique alumni
Far-right politics in France
Former Marxists
French anti-capitalists
French atheists
French male essayists
French male non-fiction writers
French political philosophers
Marxist theorists
National syndicalists
People from Cherbourg-Octeville
Philosophers of economics
Philosophers of science
Philosophers of social science
Proto-fascists
Revolutionary Syndicalism
French social commentators
Social critics
Social philosophers
French syndicalists
Theorists on Western civilization