Jean-Michel Berthelot (1945 – 5 February 2006) was a French sociologist,

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

epistemologist Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Episte ...

and

social theorist Social theories are analytical frameworks, or paradigms, that are used to study and interpret social phenomena.Seidman, S., 2016. Contested knowledge: Social theory today. John Wiley & Sons. A tool used by social scientists, social theories rela ...

, specialist in

philosophy of social sciences The philosophy of social science is the study of the logic, methods, and foundations of social sciences (psychology, cultural anthropology, sociology, etc...). Philosophers of social science are concerned with the differences and similarities b ...

history of sociology Sociology as a scholarly discipline emerged, primarily out of Enlightenment thought, as a positivist ''science of society'' shortly after the French Revolution. Its genesis owed to various key movements in the philosophy of science and the phi ...

sociology of education The sociology of education is the study of how public institutions and individual experiences affect education and its outcomes. It is mostly concerned with the public schooling systems of modern industrial societies, including the expansion of ...

sociology of knowledge The sociology of knowledge is the study of the relationship between human thought and the social context within which it arises, and the effects that prevailing ideas have on societies. It is not a specialized area of sociology. Instead, it dea ...

sociology of science The sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) is the study of science as a social activity, especially dealing with "the social conditions and effects of science, and with the social structures and processes of scientific activity." The sociolog ...

and

sociology of the body Sociology of the body is a branch of sociology studying the representations and social uses of the human body in modern societies. Early theories According to Thomas Laqueur, prior to the eighteenth century the predominant model for a social un ...

Career

Former student of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Jean Michel Berthelot began his career as a teacher of philosophy in secondary education. After a PhD under the direction of Raymond Ledrut, he became professor of sociology at the University of Toulouse Jean Jaures from 1982 to 1997, where he directed the CERS (Centre d'études et de recherches sociologiques) and the doctoral school. In 1997, he joined the University of Paris Sorbonne, first Paris V and then Paris IV. He was Secretary General of the International Association of French speaking sociologists Language (AISLF), from 1992 to 2000, as well as Secretary General of the journal "Les Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie".

Epistemology and history of sociology

Berthelot's philosophy and history of social sciences was influenced by

Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German Philosophy, philosopher and one of the central Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemolo ...

French historical epistemology French philosophy, here taken to mean philosophy in the French language, has been extremely diverse and has influenced Western philosophy as a whole for centuries, from the medieval scholasticism of Peter Abelard, through the founding of modern ...

of Bachelard, Canguilhem, Koyré and Gaston Granger, the

falsifiability Falsifiability is a standard of evaluation of scientific theories and hypotheses that was introduced by the philosopher of science Karl Popper in his book ''The Logic of Scientific Discovery'' (1934). He proposed it as the cornerstone of a sol ...

of Popper and Lakatos and the epistemological reflections of sociologists, from Durkheim, Weber and Simmel to Passeron,

Adorno Theodor W. Adorno ( , ; born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund; 11 September 1903 – 6 August 1969) was a German philosopher, sociologist, psychologist, musicologist, and composer. He was a leading member of the Frankfurt School of critica ...

and

Habermas Habermas is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Jürgen Habermas (born 1929), German sociologist and philosopher * Rebekka Habermas (born 1959), German historian *Gary Habermas Gary Robert Habermas (born 1950) is an American ...

. Jean-Michel Berthelot's epistemological work combined the philosophy and history of science in the study of

sociological theories Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation and ...

to understand the logic of construction and justification of sociological knowledge. Berthelot created a typology of sociological explanations, constituted by six logical schemas of intelligibility: causal, actancial, hermeneutic, structural, functionalist and dialectic. These types of explanation were the result of formalization of

theory A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking is often associated with such processes as observational study or research. Theories may be s ...

and

arguments An argument is a statement or group of statements called premises intended to determine the degree of truth or acceptability of another statement called conclusion. Arguments can be studied from three main perspectives: the logical, the dialectic ...

in the history of sociology. Berthelot, at the same time, criticized the epistemic relativism and defended the pluralism and openness in sociology, which makes him, in the contemporary debate on philosophy of social sciences, a rationalist and constructivist. The pluralism in sociology, in Berthelot's epistemology, is not only inevitably, but even fruitful for the research and theoretical debate.

Works

* 1983 Berthelot J.-M., Le piège scolaire, Paris, PUF, 304 pages. * 1988 Berthelot J.-M. ed., E. Durkheim, Les règles de la méthode sociologique, nouvelle édition critique avec notice biographique, index, variantes, précédée d'une étude originale, Les règles de la méthode sociologique ou l'instauration du raisonnement expérimental en sociologie, 60 p. Paris, Flammarion, coll. Champs. * 1991 Berthelot J.-M., La construction de la sociologie, Paris, PUF, collection Que-sais-je, 128 p., n° 2602. (5ème éd. 2001). * 1995 Berthelot J.-M., Durkheim, l'avénement de la sociologie, Toulouse, PUM, 186 p. * 1996 Berthelot J.-M., Les vertus de l'incertitude. Le travail de l'analyse dans les sciences sociales, Paris, PUF, 271 p. Réedition "Quadrige-Essais Débats", 2004 * 2000 Berthelot J.-M., Sociologie. Epistémologie d’une discipline. Textes fondamentaux, Bruxelles, De Boeck, 479 p. * 2000 Berthelot J.-M., La sociologie française contemporaine (sous la direction de), Paris, PUF, 2000, 274 p. Réédition Quadrige, 2001, 2003. * 2001 Berthelot J.-M., Epistémologie des sciences sociales (sous la direction de.), Paris, PUF, coll. 1er cycle, 600 p. * 2003 Berthelot J.-M., Figures du texte scientifique (sous la direction de), Paris, PUF. * 2005 Berthelot J.-M., Martin O., Collinet C., Savoirs et savants. Les études sur la science en France, Paris, PUF. * 2008 Berthelot J.-M., L'emprise du vrai. Connaissance scientifique et modernité, Paris, PUF, (posthumous edition).

On Jean Michel Berthelot

* 2015 O. Martin, J.C. Marcel, ed., Jean-Michel Berthelot. Itinéraires d'un philosophe en sociologie, Paris, PUF.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Berthelot, Jean-Michel 20th-century French philosophers French sociologists Epistemologists Continental philosophers Academic staff of the University of Paris École Normale Supérieure alumni 1945 births 2006 deaths Philosophers of social science French male writers 20th-century French male writers