Abstract

Contrary to what a persistent genealogical account seems to suggest, the social sciences were born not from an extension but from a subversion of regulation, by calling into question the transposition of the logic of the living to the social as it was carried out especially by political economy. As part of a reconstruction of the history of the French School of Sociology, the article focuses on the key contribution of Marcel Mauss, insofar as, in the wake of the principles set by Emile Durkheim, he pushed this subversion further by redefining the social on the basis of the concept of institution, taken in a broad sense.