Hector Denis (1842–1913): Politics as applied sociology?

Résumé 0

A doctor of law and of natural sciences, Hector Denis (1842–1913) was not only a sociologist, rector of the University of Brussels, and co-director of the Institute of Social Sciences created by Ernest Solvay, but also a socialist deputy for more than twenty years. As a disciple of Proudhon and Auguste Comte, how did Hector Denis solve the epistemological and political paradox of continuing the work of Adolphe Quételet while at the same time being a socialist revolutionary? From his writings and his correspondence, we aim to understand his positions, to analyze how sociology for Hector Denis was a political struggle, a means to struggle for human emancipation in order to establish whether his itinerary is unique, or whether it provides an image of Belgian sociology at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century.