Monks and Courtiers in the Crossroads of Knowledge

Abstract

In this monographic issue devoted to the sociology of knowledge and science we will try to prove that for the creation and diffusion of a certain field of discipline it is necessary to constitute some specialized corporate groups, which will be in charge of its elaboration and transmission, and that the internal dynamics of these communities may raise some objections and establish the boundaries of each specific discipline. Among all the possible thousand ways we had to open the debate, in this “Introduction” we have considered it attractive to do a brief exposition of the professional career of the French philosopher Auguste Comte, focusing particularly on his relationships with two of the most important French learning institutions of the first half of the XIXth century, the École Polytechnique and the Académie des Sciences de Paris, and establishing the inevitable parallelisms with the cursus honorum of two of his strongest intellectual rivals, François Guizot and François Arago. In the second part of the article we present a brief summary of the fifteen contributions that form this monographic issue.