Les paralogismes d'un point de vue sociologique

Abstract

LES PARALOGISMES D'UN POINT DE VUE SOCIOLOGIQUEPareto écrit dans un passage célèbre du Traité de sociologie générale : « La logique cherche pourquoi un raisonnement est erroné, la sociologie pourquoi il obtient un consentement fréquent 1 ». Le contexte immédiat du passage montre que c'est plus particulièrement au Système de logique de Mill, qui comporte un livre (Tome II, Livre V) sur les sophismes («fallacies »), que Pareto pensait. C'est à évaluer la signification de cet aphorisme programmatique et la portée de cette référence de Pareto à Mill que sera consacré cet article. Différentes recherches se développent en effet actuellement sur les erreurs de raisonnement ou les paralogismes (nous prendrons provisoirement comme synonymes ces deux expressions ainsi que celle de sophisme), tant du côté de la psychologie cognitive et des théories de l'argumentation que de la sociologie. Ainsi, en psychologie cognitive, Tversky et Kahneman ont inauguré un nouveau champ de recherches que poursuivent des auteurs comme Nisbett et Ross (1980) 16, 1995

Pareto, Mill and the Cognitive Explanation of Collective Beliefs: Unnoticed “Middle-Range Theories” in the Trattato

“…Pareto explicitly supports a hot theory on these matters. When he sets forth his view on this issue, he refers to Mill, but strangely he attributes a view to Mill that is obviously not Mill"s own ( §1410;1412), showing that he read Mill very quickly (Bouvier, 1995(Bouvier, , 1997. It is a pity, because Mill"s view is much more elaborated than Pareto"s and may perhaps be even more in accordance with the great varieties of models that Pareto, in fact, provides.…”

“…A consequence of this kind of analysis, which I will take as well-founded without having room to prove it (Bouvier, 1992(Bouvier, , 1995, is that justifications of beliefs, whether true or falsefalse for logical or empirical reasonsmust have an effective role in the perseveration or transformation of collective beliefs. In such a way, the communicative theory of beliefs (see above) is enriched by a more complete causalist theory, in which reasons, even false reasons, play a role.…”

“…Pareto is probably one of these founders whose sociological work still remains relatively little commented on. Turner, Beeghley and Powers (1981), Powers (1987), Boudon (1981Boudon ( ,1994Boudon ( , 1999, Busino (1999), Bouvier (1992, 1995, 1999b, c, 2000, Femia (2006Femia ( , 2009 and Marshall (2007), searching much more systematically than Talcott Parsons for analytical explanatory models in Pareto"s work have taken such an approach. The aim of this paper is not to suggest that careful comments on Vilfredo Pareto"s sociology could at last provide us with the "missing" overarching theory in sociology more than commentaries on Marx, Durkheim or any other classic author could.…”

“…Because of a lack of space, I will not examine in further detail here (seeBouvier, 1995) the differences in usage betweenMill and Pareto. …”

A case for emotion awareness: Evgenia Paparouni

“…A. Bouvier (1995) points out that this remark boils down to a distinction between two different research programs, as far as fallacies are concerned: the exploration of their cognitive and their affective causes, respectively. time.…”