Bouglé is a French surname most prominently associated with Célestin Charles Alfred Bouglé (1 June 1870 – 25 January 1940), a French philosopher and sociologist who was a close collaborator of Émile Durkheim and a member of the L'Année Sociologique editorial team.
Célestin Bouglé was born in Saint-Brieuc, Côtes-du-Nord, France. He entered the École Normale Supérieure in 1890 and received his agrégation in philosophy in 1893. He was a founding member of the journal Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale alongside Xavier Léon, Élie Halévy, Léon Brunschvicg, and Dominique Parodi. In 1896, he joined Durkheim and became one of the first editors of L'Année Sociologique. He received his doctorate in 1899 and became a professor of the history of social economy. Sometimes referred to as "the ambivalent Durkheimian," he is considered among the most original and autonomous of the Durkheimians.
After teaching in Saint-Brieuc, Montpellier, and Toulouse, he took a position at the Sorbonne in 1908, the same year his influential work Essays on the Caste System (original French: Essais sur le régime des castes) was published. In this work, he analyzed the Indian caste system, showing that it formed an ideological system (based on the Varnas) that surpassed the sum of its individual elements. This work later became a key inspiration for French anthropologist Louis Dumont. In 1922, Bouglé published The Evolution of Values (Leçons de sociologie sur l'évolution des valeurs), often considered his magnum opus.
Bouglé was vice-president of the Human Rights League (France) from 1911 to 1924 and played an important role in the organization's establishment in 1898. He founded and directed the first sociology research center in France, the Centre de documentation sociale (1920–1940). He became director of the École Normale Supérieure in Paris in 1935, a position he held until his death in 1940.
Other notable individuals with the surname Bouglé include:
- Marie-Louise Bouglé (5 January 1883 – 13 June 1936), a French feminist, librarian, and archivist who founded a feminist library. Her collection, the Archives Marie-Louise Bouglé, focuses on suffragism and pacifism and is held by the Bibliothèque historique de la ville de Paris.
- Louis Bouglé (1964–1924), a French artist whose works are held in collections including the National Gallery of Art.
- Adrien Bouglé, a contemporary researcher affiliated with Hôpital Universitaire La Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris.
Other usage: The name "Bouglé" is also used for the Hardy Bouglé, a classic fly fishing reel first introduced in 1903 by Hardy Bros. of Alnwick, England, belonging to their prestigious "Perfect" series.
