The thinking of Antoine-Augustin Cournot has inspired a growing literature in economy and
epistemology but as of yet his sociological thought has not been explicitly discussed and
contextualized within the discipline. From the 1850s to the end of the 1870s Cournot
contributed significantly to the history of French sociology particularly in the development
of one essential idea: that forms of knowledge are intimately linked to the progress of reason.
Philosophy therefore becomes interested in the development of the sciences evolving as they
do from the process of rationalizing human societies. Cournot's comparative-historical
sociology rediscovered especially by Gabriel Tarde in the 20th century seeks to understand
how a macro-sociological trend can depend on the aggregation of a host individual decisions and
actions or to discern a certain order out of apparent chaos.
