Search results
-
SIMMEL, Georg.
Soziologie. Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung.
Leipzig, Duncker & Humblot, 1908.
First edition, an uncommonly appealing copy. Simmel ‘had laid the foundations for the discipline of sociology long before Max Weber [who has essentially eclipsed him in the history of the discipline] turned to the problem of sociology as a special subject … The aim of sociology was to describe the...
£200
-
SMITH, Samuel Stanhope.
An essay on the causes of the variety of complexion and figure in the human species. To which are added,...
New-Brunswick, Simpson, and New York, Williams and Whiting, 1810.
‘Second edition, enlarged and improved’, really the third and enlarged American edition, first printed in Philadelphia in 1787. Smith was very much still alive and involved; in the preface he acknowledges his debt to the anthropologist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, whose works he was unaware of when...
£225
-
TARDE, Gabriel.
Psychologie Économique.
Paris, Alcan, 1902.
First edition, scarce. Tarde believed in the necessity of social harmony for viable economic activity, arguing that economic growth and innovation, like any form of social progress, is dependent on leisure, since it is leisure that encourages interactions between individuals and the formation of a social...
£250
-
WATSON, John B.
Animal education, an experimental study on the physical development of the white rat, correlated with the growth...
Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1903.
First edition, scarce, of this foundational work of behaviourist psychology or what Watson coined as ‘behaviorism’, this being his PhD thesis completed under J. R. Angell and H. H. Donaldson at Chicago. It details the physical development of the white rat’s central nervous system, and its neurological...
£250
-
[BEATTIE, James.]
FORBES, Sir William. An account of the life and writings of James Beattie, LL.D. Late Professor of Moral Philosophy...
New York and Philadelphia, Isaac Riley and Co. and William F. McLaughlin, 1806.
First American edition. James Beattie was author of The Essay on Truth (1770) and Elements of Moral Science (1790-93), in which he argued against the institution of slavery, but he was also a poet, known principally for The Minstrel (1771-74). This work prints over two hundred letters, the recipients...
£225
-
BONNET, Victor.
WALKER, George, translator. The example of France. Two essays on the payment of the indemnity, and the management...
New York, D. Appleton and Company, 1875.
First edition in English. In the first of these two essays, which appeared in the Revue des deux mondes in 1873, Bonnet provided an account of how France was successfully paying the enormous sum demanded from the Prussians at the end of the Franco-Prussian War: 5,000,000,000 francs. The second essay...
£150
-
CALVERT, George Henry.
Introduction to social science. A discourse in three parts.
New York, Redfield, 1856.
First edition, rare in commerce. George Calvert (1803-89) was a journalist, traveller, and writer, and was the first American author to produce biographies of Goethe and Wordsworth. Calvert held the position of Chair of Moral Philosophy at the University of Baltimore.
£200
-
CAREY, H.
C. The British Treaties of 1871 & 1874: letters to the President of the United States.
Philadelphia, Collins, 1875.
First edition of a pamphlet which marks the completion of the arc in Carey’s thinking regarding bilateral trade deals, described in his time as ‘reciprocity’ arrangements. Having endorsed such deals early in his career as acts that promoted free trade, in the 1840s and 1850s Carey came to believe...
£175
-
COMTE, Auguste.
Lettres d’Auguste Comte a M. Valat.
Paris, Dunod, éditeur, successeur de Dalmont, Juillet 1870.
First edition thus, Comte’s letters written to Philippe Valat, a disciple of whom little seems to be known. He was a professor of mathematics at Montpellier and rector of a church at Rhodez. The letters, all of them from Comte to Valat, are sometimes highbrow but mostly show Comte simply discussing...
£125
-
COMTE, Auguste.
CONGREVE, Richard, editor and S. LOBB, translator. The eight circulars of Auguste Comte. Translated...
London, Trübner & Co., 1882.
First edition, the first appearance in English. Comte’s ‘circulars’ are fundraising essays, addressed to the patrons who subscribed to positivist funds. Congreve was a founder of the London Positivist Society in 1867, and promoted a specifically religious interpretation of the positivist philosophy,...
£150
-
COMTE, Auguste.
DESCOURS, Paul and H. Gordon JONES, translators. The fundamental principles of the positive philosophy....
London, Watts, 1905.
First edition thus, rare in commerce. The introduction is by Edward Spencer Beesly, an English positivist who was acquainted with Marx. In 1893 he founded the Positivist Review. He describes this as the first instalment in a more complete translation of Comte’s Philosophie Positive than...
£80
-
COMTE, Auguste.
HARRISON, Frederic, editor. The new calendar of great men. Biographies of the 558 worthies of all ages and...
London and New York, Macmillan, 1892.
First edition of a positivist collection of biographies drawn from Comte’s thirteen-month calendar of eminent men in history. This is not one for feminists; though in leap-years, an additional day is generously provided for ‘good women’ (and another for ‘all the dead’). Harrison was tutored...
£175
-
[COMTE, Auguste.]
LEWES, George Henry. Comte’s philosophy of the sciences: being an exposition of the Cours de philosophie positive...
London, Bohn, 1853.
First edition. Lewes brings Comte’s philosophy to a new audience in England, where Comte’s reputation is on the rise, and updates the scientific context to include all the ‘very latest facts and ideas’. Lewes had no formal scientific training but from around 1853 onwards he took an active interest...
£175
-
[COMTE, Auguste.]
CAIRD, Edward. The social philosophy and religion of Comte.
New York, Macmillan, 1885.
First American edition, first published Glasgow in the same year, originally appearing as a series of articles in the Contemporary Review. Caird is critical of the Positivist religion, calling it ‘artificial’ and focusing on its current schisms. Comte himself gets off lightly, with Caird willing...
£60
-
[COMTE, Auguste.]
LÉVY-BRUHL, Lucien. BEAUMONT-KLEIN, Kathleen de, translator. The philosophy of Auguste Comte. Authorised...
New York and London, Putnam’s and Sonnenschein, 1903.
First American edition, the London edition appearing the same year; first published in French in 1900. An attempt to reinforce the idea of the absolute reality of ‘humanity’ in a system otherwise entirely relative, towards which doubts were obviously growing. Lévy-Bruhl ponders mathematics, science...
£50
-
[COMTE, Auguste.]
LITTRÉ, Émile. Auguste Comte et la philosophie positive.
Paris, Hachette, 1863.
First edition. Littré, better-known as a philologer and compiler of French dictionaries, was a devoted positivist. This edition contains Comte’s correspondence with John Stuart Mill but also with Harriet Martineau, translator of the Cours de philosophie positive; an account of Comte’s influences;...
£75
-
COOLEY, Charles Horton.
Human nature and the social order.
New York, Scribner’s, 1902.
First edition. Cooley’s first published book on the subject of sociology, following a number of articles written in the 1890s. In this work Cooley lays out his conception of the individual self as being defined by its relationships with society, with a strong focus on the development of children. This...
£125
-
COOLEY, Charles Horton.
Social organization. A study of the larger mind.
New York, Scribner’s, 1909.
First edition. This work continues from Human nature by further developing the idea of a self-conscious self, more reliant in this instance on the basic tenets of psychoanalysis, such as the Ego. Much more prevalent here is the consideration of economic systems, with free will under discussion...
£150
-
COOLEY, Charles Horton.
Social process.
New York, Scribner’s, 1918.
First edition of Cooley’s last major work of theoretical sociology. If Social organization was a book about free will and the potential or predilection for upward movement in economic systems, such as in the ‘ascendant’ capitalist class, the most significant idea presented by Cooley in Social...
£150
-
DURAND DE GROS, Joseph-Pierre.
Essais de physiologie philosophique suivis d’une étude sur la théorie de la méthode en general.
Paris, London, New York and Madrid, Baillère, 1866.
First edition of Durand’s early work of behavioral psychology. His essays on the physiology of perception and the relationship of the mind to the outside world do not, by his own admission, use groundbreaking medical observations, but he readdresses well-versed scientific knowledge with philosophical...
£100