A Quite Singular Object!
This article thematizes singularity as a new theoretical object of sociology. On the basis of a clear distinction between singularity and particularity, it argues that sociology has historically privileged generality, given its nomothetic orientations, and in doing so the articulation between the general and the particular. The only singularity underlined in this perspective was the singularity of the occidental historical trajectory, but it was itself understood in a global way. Considering singularity as a new object for sociology implies to highlight the combined effect of internal developments of the discipline (critique of the reduction of the singular to the particular or of the confusion between singularity and homogeneity) and of sociohistorical transformations. The analysis is deepened through three main entries: the singularity of the individual, the singularity of the actional and interactional dynamics and the historical singularity.