Abstract
This text focuses on a classic figure in the history of science, the genius. Sociology very early on offered its own interpretation of who the scientific genius actually was, which it tended to honour on the one hand (it did not want to deny the great figures of the history of science their greatness) and to "bring down to earth" on the other (the "genius", in its interpretation, would not be removed from the standard functioning of science).
From the later sociology of scientific knowledge, the genius scientist will almost disappear, in favour of the scientific collective, scientific community, or even scientific "superorganism". More broadly the paper deals with the question of scientific achievement, but also with scientific rationality, which sociology attributes not to an exceptional way of scientific "thinking", but to scientific practice.