CONTRIBUTI / 4 / Miriam Aiello /
Tarde, Adorno and Bourdieu. Three uses of the Leibnizian concept of monad in social philosophy
The article explores the uptake of Leibniz’s concept of monad within the social theories of Tarde, Adorno and Bourdieu. In the first part, the Author analyses these socio-philosophical uses of the concept of monad. To the purpose of positing the monad as a true ontological and spiritual fundament of both natural and social sciences, Tarde is committed with a ‘Newtonianization’ of Leibniz’s monad that allows it to be fully spiritual and ‘eager of possession’. Adorno’s references to the Leibnizian monad express the diagnostic-critical aim of displaying the oppressive fundament of the relationship between individual and social totality in the contemporary capitalistic society. Bourdieu makes a more disguised use of the Leibnizian monad, as he constructs his concepts of habitus according to some monadological features. These references to the same ontological category turn out to express heterogeneous and even reciprocally incompatible conceptions of the relationship between individual and society. In the last part of the article, the Author explores these different receptions of the concept of monad, their relying on different aspects of Lebniz’s Monadology and their common core, that also justifies the possibility of a socio-philosophical use of Leibniz’s monad in general.
