Célestin Charles Alfred Bouglé (1 June 1870 – 25 January 1940) was a French
philosopher known for his role as one of
Émile Durkheim
David Émile Durkheim ( or ; 15 April 1858 – 15 November 1917) was a French sociologist. Durkheim formally established the academic discipline of sociology and is commonly cited as one of the principal architects of modern social science, al ...
's collaborators and a member of the ''
L'Année Sociologique''.
Life
Bouglé was born in
Saint-Brieuc,
Côtes-du-Nord. He entered the
École Normale Supérieure
École may refer to:
* an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée)
* École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France
* École, S ...
in 1890 and
aggregated in philosophy in 1893. He was, along with
Xavier Léon,
Élie Halévy
Élie Halévy (6 September 1870 – 21 August 1937) was a French philosopher and historian who wrote studies of the British utilitarians, the book of essays '' Era of Tyrannies'', and a history of Britain from 1815 to 1914 that influenced Britis ...
,
Léon Brunschvicg
Léon Brunschvicg (; 10 November 1869 – 18 January 1944) was a French Idealist philosopher. He co-founded the ''Revue de métaphysique et de morale'' with Xavier Leon and Élie Halévy in 1893.
Life
He was born into a Jewish family.
From ...
and
Dominique Parodi, one of the founding members of the journal ''
Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale''. In 1896 he joined with Durkheim and became one of the first editors of the ''
Année Sociologique''. He received his doctorate in 1899.
After teaching in
Saint-Brieuc,
Montpellier, and
Toulouse
Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Pa ...
he took a position at the
Sorbonne
Sorbonne may refer to:
* Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities.
*the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970)
*one of its components or linked institution, ...
in 1908, the same year that ''Essay on the Caste System'' (his best-known work) appeared. He became the director of the École Normale Supérieure in 1935 until 1940. He died in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
in 1940.
Influence
Bouglé was one of French anthropologist
Louis Dumont
Louis Charles Jean Dumont (11 August 1911 – 19 November 1998) was a French anthropologist.
Dumont was born in Thessaloniki, in the Salonica Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire. He taught at Oxford University during the 1950s, and was then dire ...
's foremost inspirations when it came to seeing Indian
castes
Caste is a form of social stratification characterised by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultura ...
(in the spirit of the ''Année Sociologique'') not just as elements making up a whole, but forming an ideological system (that of the
Varnas, not the numerous
Jatis) that in meaning and scope surpasses the sum of the elements.
Works
* ''Essais sur le régime des castes'' (''Essays on the caste system''; published in English as "Essays on the Caste System by Celestin Bougle" with a translation by
D. F. Pocock in 1971 by Cambridge University Press)
* ''Leçons de sociologie sur l’évolution des valeurs'' (Sociological lessons on the evolution of values, 1926; published in English as ''The Evolution of Values: Studies in Sociology with Special Applications to Teaching'')
External links
*
*
1870 births
1940 deaths
Writers from Saint-Brieuc
École Normale Supérieure alumni
French sociologists
French male non-fiction writers
{{france-philosopher-stub