Individual, society and social field. Approaching Gabriel Tarde's infinitesimal sociology

The work proposes to reconstruct the central features of Gabriel Tarde's sociology, with the aim of clarifying its concepts of individual, society and social field. We will seek to show that this sociological perspective, elaborated at the end of the 19th century, I s still new today for it implies a particular way of conceiving the social and its historical processes. Its peculiarity lies in not adjusting itself to the epis-temological distributions that have dominated the social sciences until nowadays: individualism-holism, micro-macro, agency-structure. Supported by a philosophy and epistemology of infinitesimal difference, this sociology does not have individuals or social systems as the foundation of social life. Its starting point is a field of inter-mental beliefs and desires where individuals, groups and social systems are made and un-made.