Thesis title: Politica e organizzazione. Scienza, industria e storia in Claude-Henri de Saint-Simon
This dissertation examines the political thought of Claude-Henri de Saint-Simon through the lens of organization, understood as a unifying concept bridging science, politics, and history. Through a reinterpretation of his scientific and political writings, the study shows how Saint-Simon developed a theory of industrial society grounded in a physiological and historical vision of organization. After reconstructing the reception of his work from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, the research focuses on the scientific method he proposed, aimed at overcoming the divide between the natural and social sciences. Organization is presented not merely as a descriptive category, but as a normative force guiding historical progress and social reform. Particular attention is given to Saint-Simon’s use of physiology as an epistemological tool for interpreting intelligence, cooperation, and the evolution of human societies. In this perspective, the thesis highlights the connections between his thought and the legacy of the Idéologues, showing how physiology, morality, and politics converge in the definition of a social order based on organization. Finally, the analysis turns to the central role of industry in the construction of a new political theory, in which the industrial class is conceived as the functional and historical foundation of modernity. Drawing on the theory of organization, the dissertation discusses the concepts of class, industry, government, administration, and sovereignty in order to situate Saint-Simon’s political project within the broader conceptual transformations that reshaped European modernity between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.