Abstract

The article briefly outlines the academic, scientific and political roles played by Achille Ardigò during his life. Then it illustrates the important scientific contributions of Ardigò to the study of the relations occurring between contemporary social systems, on one side, persons, groups, associations, and communities that make up those systems, on the other side. The aspects of Ardigò’s analyses that seem to be still sound and valid are stressed, together with the ones that currently appear to be less convincing and more debatable.