ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews Tarde’s efforts to find a solution to the problem of sociological method, and his suggestion that sociology should be an experimental and observational as well as a statistical science. In the first part, I discuss the difference between Tarde’s interpretations of the value of statistics and the more influential approach of his adversary, Emile Durkheim. In the second part, I focus, in particular, on his interest, expressed in The Social Laws, in the development of experimental phonetics pioneered by his contemporary l’Abbé Rousselot. In the conclusion, I return to the question, raised by Deleuze and Guattari’s observations on The Social Laws, of the politics of Tarde’s approach to sociological method and his interest in how both to account for, and to detect, variation.
