Overview

This book presents a new reading of the history of French social science and religion through an investigation of early sociology’s techniques for narrating the category of belief. The author argues that by looking at the history of social sciences in this manner, we gain a deeper understanding of both our present debates on post-secularity as well as our modernist past, both of which were thoroughly shaped by their reflections and critiques on the notion of belief yet failed to enter into any sort of meaningful communication with each other. This book seeks to rectify this failure by introducing the concept of ‘belief-languages’, an anthropological framework designed to historicize different discussions on belief and allow for their comparative description and analysis.

Full Product Details

Author:   Michiel Van Dam
Publisher:   Springer International Publishing AG
Imprint:   Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN:  

9783031700255

ISBN 10:   3031700252
Pages:   331
Publication Date:   29 September 2025
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: On the Possibility of A Sociological Mode of Existence. Bruno Latour and the Post-Secular Critiques of Belief.- Chapter 3: Historicizing the Sociological Belief/Knowledge-Composition: Theories and Method.- Chapter 4: Early Experiments in the Sociological Operation I: Languages of Belief within the French Eighteenth-Century Knowledge Culture.- Chapter 5: Early Experiments in the Sociological Operation II. The Christian Sociologism of Louis de Bonald.- Chapter 6: Early Experiments in the Sociological Operation III. The Socialist Sociologisms of Saint-Simon and the Saint-Simonists.- Chapter 7: Sociology as Institution and as Spiritual Authority. Languages of Belief in the Work of Auguste Comte.- Chapter 8: Narrating Solidarity through the Division of Belief: Durkheim and the History of Belief Systems.- Chapter 9: The Varieties of Sociological Experience. Durkheimian Belief/Knowledge-Compositions.- Chapter 10: Epilogue: Sociology and Belief Beyond Positivism.- Chapter 11: Concluding Remarks: Returning to the Post-Secular.

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Author Information

Michiel Van Dam is an intellectual historian, specializing in the historical anthropology of techniques of self-historicization and -government during (early) modernity. He is currently affiliated with the University of Antwerp as a post-doctoral researcher.

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