Notably, Proudhon held a similar conception of the relationship between theology, philosophy, & science. Instead of science superseding the others, he argued that science must essentially complete them. Unsurprisingly, Proudhon was held in high regard within “subjectivist sociology” & the Narodniks.

This 1874 work was an important one for classical Russian “subjectivist sociology”, whose most unique feature was that it was essentially a middle ground between positivist sociology and Marxist sociology and was directly connected to the Narodnik socialist movement in Russia.

However, for being subtitled “against the positivists”, there isn’t as much dialogue about positivism as you’d expect. The majority of the book is him outlining the main currents of philosophical thought in the West since the Enlightenment to show how they culminated in Comte’s positivism.

For Solovyov, sociological positivism, which he argued as the logical outcome of all Western philosophy, was ultimately the culmination of the split between the Orthodoxy and Catholicism, and then the rise of Protestantism. The West gradually placed reason above faith, emotion, intuition, etc.

The sociologist Pierre Ansart argued that both Marxism and Anarchism had shared roots in Saint-Simonism. It’s commonly argued that the central thesis of Saint-Simon is the replacement of government with administration.

Yes it does!

The people that made the argument that basically all social interaction follows a smooth flow would claim that they were following Goffman’s functionalism. However, like you point out, and which Collins also emphasizes, there is also an underlying conflict theory in Goffman’s functionalist approach.

When you are predominantly studying task groups in lab environments, I think it can give the impression that all social life follows a “smooth flow”. However it doesn’t take much awareness of everyday reality to realize that micro interaction is also rife with “rough flows”, if you can call it that.

Sorry to hear that. Most grants that are getting cut are near the end of their funding. It’s pretty imperative at the moment to try to avoid no cost extensions since it seems like most grants are being cut at this stage (I work in a grants department.)

Revisiting that article, it does kind of scream a Gurvitchean influence, particularly since Gurvitch argued that Marxists had completely distorted Marx’s doctrines & stressed the need to dedogmatize Marx. He also emphasized all the new works that were becoming available by Marx in the 20th century.

For context, Berthier stated that they met at Radio Libertaire, and that he asked Rubel, a so-called “Marxologist”, if he still thought Marx was a “theorist of anarchism”, which was the topic of a paper Rubel published in 1973.

René Berthier commented to me that he once met the late Rubel and asked him a question about Marx. Rubel stated “None of that matters. What matters now is Proudhon.” He went onto to tell Berthier that he was working on a book on Proudhon that took all his time, but it was apparently never published.

Probably where I depart the most is that I don’t have an issue with a “citizen state”, as Proudhon called it. Having lost its place as the dominating institution among all others, it thereby loses the ability to decree law to others, but could still serve to adjudicate legal disputes.

You’re not wrong. I suppose liberal anarchism is ancapy to
me in general, which is not meant as an insult. Personally, I’m more interested in social law, namely that law is an emergent part of all social life, which I suppose is more compatible with a socialistic interpretation of anarchism.

Some of that reminded me of Gurvitch’s concept of “the dialectic of the state”, namely that the state can be a tool to overcome human domination, although it also engenders domination.

However, some of the talk of competitive militias, courts, & police in the article was a little too ancapy for me.

Long ago, I used to sip tea and listen to Oum Kalthoum with my grandmother. I miss those days. Thanks for posting.