Gabriel Tarde and the Relational Foundations of Agency

Abstract

This thesis offers a novel philosophical framework for addressing questions of responsibility and agency in a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence (AI). Building on the metaphysics of Gabriel Tarde, a largely overlooked nineteenth-century French thinker, the work challenges conventional dichotomies between individuals and society by presenting a relational ontology rooted in imitation, innovation, and alliance. Through a comprehensive integration of Tarde’s Laws of Imitation and his Monadology and Sociology, the thesis reveals how patterns of coordination and collective organization arise from micro-level interactions among “monads,” entities characterized by beliefs and desires. In doing so, it uncovers a theoretical foundation for reconsidering liability frameworks in the context of autonomous AI systems. The study also situates Tarde within a broader intellectual lineage by tracing his connection to Leibniz’s monadology, highlighting both continuities and critical departures. By demonstrating that Tarde’s relational metaphysics provides greater conceptual clarity and coherence than traditional individualist or holistic models of social order and agency, the thesis makes three primary contributions to knowledge: it revives and reinterprets Tarde’s thought for contemporary philosophy and legal theory; it proposes a new metaphysical account of social agency; and it offers practical insights into the reform of legal liability structures in light of emerging technologies, principally AI. The result is a richer understanding of agency as fundamentally relational, providing an innovative lens through which to view the evolving interplay between human and artificial actors.