Gabriel Tarde

Gabriel Tarde was a French sociologist, criminologist and social psychologist, born in Sarlat-la-Caneda in 1843, who worked for over two decades as a magistrate and investigating judge before turning to scholarship full time. He argued that sociology should be grounded in small-scale psychological interactions among individuals, treating imitation and innovation as the fundamental forces of social life, and he became the most prominent contemporary critic of Emile Durkheim's rival, more collectivist sociology after his 1900 appointment as professor of modern philosophy at the College de France. He also critiqued Cesare Lombroso's theory of the born criminal and corresponded with leading criminal anthropologists including Enrico Ferri and Alexandre Lacassagne. He died in Paris in 1904.