L'enseignement, lieu de rencontre entre historiens et sociologues
1990; Volume: 1; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.3406/socco.1990.940
ISSN1950-6899
AutoresJean-Claude Passeron, Antoine Prost,
Tópico(s)Cultural Identity and Heritage
ResumoJEAN-CLAUDE PASSERON AND ANTOINE PROST For Antoine Prost, history in France enjoys a specific status : it is a central element in the making of the national identity. French society grasps and analyses itself through its history, and this induces a specific type of knowledge.In Raymond Aron's opposition between explanation and understanding, history is on the side of understanding. Sociology deals more with explanation, i.e. looking for causes. Durkheim, in the Suicide, is the best representative of that trend. Jean-Claude Passeron argues that the two disciplines are in fact on the same ground, and that there is no epistemological reason to differentiate them. They are sociologically different because of the way each of the academic communities plays its own game moving back and forth between experimental reasoning and setting up the plot of historical narration. Sociologists prefer the moments of experimental reasoning but cannot develop them to their end. Historians, particularly when dealing with past times for which present words do not mean much, can do little more than suggest. The two disciplines are therefore in such a situation that they cannot avoid dialogue on the same terrain, and should thus enrich each other.
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