La fabrique d'un classique français: Le cas de «Weber»

Abstract

Our study shows the specificity of the work of fabrication and sociological sanctification of «Weber» in France. Given the central place of «Weber» in the US-American sociology and the force of attraction of American sociology among French sociologists in the nineteen-sixties, the German author becomes sanctified. Though, the actual reason for achieving in very little time the status of the «sociologist par excellence» is rather due to the specific social, political and intellectual conditions in France at that time. The sanctification of «Weber» gets possible especially thanks to the dispositions and resources of its import agent Raymond Aron and particularly his alliance with Éric de Dampierre, the person in charge of the translation project of the work of the German author at the publishing house Plon. The article reveals first the process of selection and marking of «Weber» by Aron in the context of the institutionalization of French sociology around 1960. Starting from a count of the occurrence of references to «Weber» in the Revue Française de Sociologie and the Archives Européennes de Sociology in the nineteen-sixties, it discusses then the reasons of the fading of his recognition as a « antipositivist», «antimarxist» and «academic» symbol towards the end of the decade.