From Tarde to Deleuze and Foucault: The Infinitesimal Revolution (Palgrave Studies in Relational Sociology)

Annotation This book posits that a singular paradigm in social theory can be discovered by reconstructing the conceptual grammar of Gabriel Tarde's micro-sociology and by understanding the ways in which Gilles Deleuze's micro-politics and Michel Foucault's micro-physics have engaged with it. This is articulated in the infinite social multiplicity-invention-imitation-opposition-open system. Guided by infinitist ontology and an epistemology of infinitesimal difference, this paradigm offers a micro-socio-logic capable of producing new ways of understanding social life and its vicissitudes. In the field of social theory, this can be called the infinitesimal revolution Front Matter....Pages i-xviii Microsociology, Micropolitics, and Microphysics: Toward the Paradigm of Infinitesimal Difference....Pages 1-23 Tarde and the Infinitesimal Sociology....Pages 25-43 Individuals, Publics, and Crowds. Where Does Social Change Come From?....Pages 45-65 Diffusion or War? Foucault as a Reader of Tarde....Pages 67-89 Desire, Assemblages, Machines. Deleuze et al....Pages 91-114 The Reason for Being of the Finite....Pages 115-140 Back Matter....Pages 141-154 Sergio Tonkonoff. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 141-147) And Index.