The Theme of Animal Sociality in Russian Pre-Revolutionary Sociology: A.V. Espinas and the Failure of Interdisciplinary Dialogue

Abstract

Fragments of interdisciplinary tradition in Russian sociology related to understanding the phenomenon of sociality are considered in this article. A special place in this tradition belongs to A.V. Espinas, who anticipated in his work “Social Life of Animals” certain important ideas of sociology, as well as ethology, theoretical biology and system studies. Meanwhile, the socio-scientific potential of Espinas’ work was not appreciated neither by the first Russian sociologists, nor in subsequent periods of the development of sociology, both Russian and Western. In explaining the lack of success of the dialogue between sociology and biology, several reasons have been suggested related to the excessively pragmatic position of sociologists when it comes to the results of interdisciplinary analysis, the dominance of the Darwinian worldview in social and scientific thought, the excessive claims of biology for a comprehensive explanation of universal forms of social life, and stylistic features of biological descriptions of the social interactions of animals.

Keywords

• russian sociology; animal sociology; immanent sociality; organicism; darwinism; nomogenesis; anthropomorphism; “normal societies”
• “collective consciousness”
• “pre-sociology”; disciplinary boundaries of sociology
• system research