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This paper describes the context in which the teaching of psychology as an autonomous discipline was introduced in France, and reproduces the first psychology lecture given in France by Théodule Ribot on 9 April 1888 at The Collège de France. In France, this recognition was delayed because of the negative influence of spiritualist philosophy. It took both the acknowledged status of a man (Ribot) and a minister's decision for this new type of teaching to be accepted in France. After describing the events that took place at the Collège de France and at the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, we reproduce in full Ribot's inaugural lecture at the Collège, an important document for the history of French psychology. We conclude by describing the circumstances in which this teaching came to its end in 1901. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to traditional French historiography, French scientific psychology was born when it differentiated itself from philosophy. This split between the two disciplines is attributed to Taine and Ribot, who, consequently, are considered to be the “founding fathers” of French psychology. In this paper we shall examine the case of Pierre Janet, who, at the turn of the century, was recognized worldwide as the most important French psychologist. It is generally said that he was the follower of Ribot and of Charcot. However, he was also Paul Janet's nephew. Paul Janet was a very well known and influential philosopher of the so-called French “spiritualistic” school, for which psychology was central to philosophy. In 1889, Pierre Janet published his doctoral dissertation, L'Automatisme psychologique, which was immediately considered to be a classic in psychology. We shall argue that this book is as much indebted to the old spiritualistic psychology, which claimed the substantial unity of the self, as to the new psychology at the time, which questioned it. With Pierre Janet, the split between psychology and philosophy in France was reconsidered. It would be more accurate to speak in terms of a compromise between philosophy and the “new” physiological and pathological psychology. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until quite recently, questionnaire surveys, semi-structured interviews and the gathering and interpreting of various documents have been the main kinds of empirical research to be found in French sociology. Observation plays a leading role in none of them, even in the latter. The researchers who use it do not seem convinced of its legitimacy, because what can be expected from systematic observation does not fit the prevailing purpose of developing abstract, general theories. After having sketched out the institutional and intellectual background, this paper examines a few examples of French studies using observation. Most of them fail to clearly distinguish between indirect evidence and direct observation, between meaning as construed by the observer and that experienced by the people observed; they rarely report dated and situated facts (even more seldom behaviors than settings), and they replace the expected analyses of these messing facts with the interpretation of would-be typical or usual facts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on confusion over various terms in social sciences. Several years ago the author participated in an interdisciplinary panel on "development," at an international sociological congress. Some persuasive and sharply analytic papers were presented, but very little meeting of minds took place simply because the participants had different things in mind when they talked about development. In that context it did little good to explain the fact that development is a polyseme and hence communication between the panelists could be achieved only after people had learned which sense of this word was intended by each scholar using it. Moreover, the effort to prescribe a correct meaning of development led only to contention and disagreement, not cumulation of knowledge or enhanced understanding. The meanings of word "nation" also vary with the disciplines. Political scientists usually have something like the state in mind and they may use the compound, "nation-state," to help remove the ambiguities in both words. By contrast, anthropologists and sociologists are more likely to use "nation" in an ethnic sense, applying it to communities that share a sense of common ancestry and make political claims, typically for control of a single state. In this sense it is not the French "state" that builds the French nation, but rather the French nation that created the state.

Understanding social processes (trajectories of relationships among stakeholders), political constraints, cultural aspects and public opinions is essential for efficient design, sustainability and evaluation of restoration operations. However, few restoration projects involve the participation of social sciences., The ecological restoration of the Rhône River involved increasing flow below dams and better connecting floodplain channels at multiple sites along the river. Therefore, it provided a unique opportunity to identify the commonalities and differences among social processes associated with ecological restoration., We used qualitative analyses of speeches and interviews with stakeholders to understand their relationship to the Rhône. These analyses revealed that social values, relating local residents to the river, played a major role throughout the restoration projects., The comparison of social processes among three sites of the Rhône shows that they generally followed three stages: managing a crisis, transforming the relationship to the river and valuing the local social space (the territory)., Consistent patterns emerging across sites included the following: (i) the role of a local public figure able to mobilise stakeholders in supporting the restoration project; (ii) the importance of the organisation of the stakeholder community and its commitment to the project; and (iii) the major role of interactions between local and national levels. Variation across sites also occurred and may be related to unforeseen events such as political changes and natural hazards (e.g. floods and pollution)., Involving social science in restoration projects requires taking into account commonalities in social processes as well as the diversity of local experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the early years of the Rochester department of economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the issue of over the proposal made by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France's principal funding body, to remove anthropology out of its disciplinary list. CNRS attributed anthropology as a subsidiary of the field of history. The reaction to the proposal was so negative that CNRS decided to abandon the plan. This move by the CNRS is an important issue that confronts anthropology as a field of study.

Discusses the effects of war on fifteenth-century France. Participation of Henry V on the policy of confiscation of lands; Focus on the problem of France on re-establishing social peace; Actions done by Charles VII to prevent the French war.

The article attempts to follow up the fate of the concept Maurice Duverger created to explain the regime of the French Fifth Republic: semi-presidential government. Duverger expounded the concept in his fundamental book Échec au roi in 1978, trying to illustrate the fact that regimes of this type worked quite differently in the seven Western and Northern European countries that institutionalized it. ‘Semi-presidentialism’ is now widely, but very often controversially, used. The recent appearance of such regimes in newly democratizing states points to the fact that this form of government is often the preferred solution in times of transition. A critical review of Duverger's concept seems expedient as the diversification of these regimes raises new and perhaps intriguing questions. Due to the rejection of Duverger's concept or its ignorance in parts of the European scientific community, it is necessary to defend it as an important tool for political analysis. Moreover, it opens the opportunity for the examination of fundamental problems in political science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article exposes the developments of qualitative methodology in French sociology with respect to methods proposed by Pierre Bourdieu and Alain Touraine: `provoked and accompanied' self-analysis and the sociological intervention. In addition to the presentation of these two methods, the propose of this article is to describe and discuss the position of these two authors on certain problems such as representativeness, objectivity, status of data, epistemological rupture and lastly on the question of the writing by which sociological knowledge is formed from common sense knowledge contained In the data. This brings to a broader discussion on these questions. The strengths and weaknesses of these two methods are finally examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Positivism is a subject about which much is said, yet little understood. Of central importance for the history of the social and behavioral sciences, Positivism appears in widely various guises; as logical positivism of the Vienna School, as a sort of anti-theoretical empiricism against which many theoreticians have railed, and as a doctrine of faith for the regeneration of a broken society. Concentrating on the latter, the author inquires into the development of Positivism in nineteenth­century France in the writings of Saintshy;Simon, Comte, and Durkheim, all of whom emphasized the role of faith in determining certainty, or, at the very least, in keeping doubt at bay. The thinking of these French Positivists is then linked with the pragmatism of William James. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on the unrest and republican model of integration in France. The pre-dominant epistemological position on the French anthropology defines the discipline as the study of distant societies. Questions have been raised by the state of affairs regarding the origin of anthropology and reproduction of the discipline in the country.