Émile Durkheim
Society is a reality of its own that shapes individuals, and when its shared rules break down people lose their bearings.
Placement
Made sociology a discipline of its own: social facts are to be treated as things; societies are held together by mechanical or organic solidarity, are threatened by anomie, and in what they hold sacred they worship themselves.
Key ideas
- Social fact
- Mechanical and organic solidarity
- Anomie
- Collective consciousness
- Sacred and profane
Students: Marcel Mauss, Taha Hussein
Influence
Influenced by 6
Montesquieu
influenced by ✓
In his Latin thesis (1892) Durkheim credited Montesquieu with seeing that social institutions form a system and vary with the type of society, a step towards social science. É. Durkheim, Quid Secundatus politicae scientiae instituendae contulerit (1892), in Montesquieu et Rousseau, précurseurs de la sociologie (1953); SEP “Montesquieu”
Montesquieu › 1689–1755
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
influenced by
In lectures on the Social Contract (printed 1918) Durkheim read Rousseau’s general will as anticipating his view of society as a moral reality above individuals. É. Durkheim, “Le Contrat social de Rousseau”, Revue de métaphysique et de morale 25 (1918), in Montesquieu et Rousseau, précurseurs de la sociologie (1953); SEP “Jean Jacques Rousseau”
Evidence: AI draft
Jean-Jacques Rousseau › 1712–1778
Immanuel Kant
influenced by
Durkheim gave Kant’s categories a social origin: time, space and causality derive from collective life, above all religion (Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse, 1912). É. Durkheim, Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse (1912), introduction; S. Lukes, Émile Durkheim: His Life and Work (1973)
Evidence: AI draft
Immanuel Kant › 1724–1804
Henri de Saint-Simon
influenced by
In lectures on socialism (1895–96, printed 1928) Durkheim called Saint-Simon the true originator of positivism and sociology, taking up his call for moral regulation of industrial society. É. Durkheim, Le Socialisme, ed. M. Mauss (1928); S. Lukes, Émile Durkheim: His Life and Work (1973)
Evidence: AI draft
Henri de Saint-Simon › 1760–1825
Auguste Comte
influenced by ✓
Durkheim took over Comte’s positive science of society but rejected the law of three stages as philosophy of history, not science (Les règles de la méthode sociologique, 1895). É. Durkheim, Les règles de la méthode sociologique (1895); A. Comte, Cours de philosophie positive (1830–42); S. Lukes, Émile Durkheim: His Life and Work (1973); SEP “Auguste Comte”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Auguste Comte › 1798–1857
Gustav von Schmoller
influenced by disputed
Durkheim’s 1887 survey of German moral science discusses Schmoller’s work among those of the German ethical economists; the text of the survey was not read. Durkheim, “La science positive de la morale en Allemagne”, Revue philosophique 24 (1887); Wikisource, appendix to Deploige/Durkheim, Le conflit de la morale et de la sociologie (1912), names Schmoller among those he analysed – survey text itself not read
Evidence: AI draft
Gustav von Schmoller › 1838–1917
Influenced 12
Marcel Mauss taught
taught ✓
Mauss, Durkheim’s nephew, studied philosophy in Bordeaux under his guidance; Durkheim steered him towards the study of religion, and they wrote ‘De quelques formes primitives de classification’ together (1903). M. Fournier, Marcel Mauss (1994); É. Durkheim & M. Mauss, “De quelques formes primitives de classification”, L’Année sociologique 6 (1903)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Marcel Mauss › 1872–1950
Claude Lévi-Strauss
influenced ✓
Lévi-Strauss continued Durkheim and Mauss’s study of primitive classification (1903) but explained classifications by the structure of the human mind rather than of society (La pensée sauvage, 1962). C. Lévi-Strauss, “French Sociology”, in G. Gurvitch and W. E. Moore (eds.), Twentieth Century Sociology (1945); La pensée sauvage (1962); É. Durkheim and M. Mauss, “De quelques formes primitives de classification”, Année sociologique 6 (1903)
Claude Lévi-Strauss › 1908–2009
Mary Douglas
influenced ✓
Douglas built on Durkheim: pollution ideas protect a social system of classification (Purity and Danger, 1966), and institutions shape what members classify and remember (How Institutions Think, 1986). M. Douglas, Purity and Danger (1966); How Institutions Think (1986); É. Durkheim, Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse (1912)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Mary Douglas › 1921–2007
Jürgen Habermas
influenced ✓
Habermas developed from Durkheim’s sociology of religion the thesis of a ‘linguistification of the sacred’, in which ritual authority passes into communicative agreement (Theory of Communicative Action, 1981). J. Habermas, Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns (1981), vol. II; É. Durkheim, Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse (1912); SEP “Jürgen Habermas”
Jürgen Habermas › 1929–2026
Pierre Bourdieu
influenced ✓
Bourdieu extended Durkheim and Mauss’s thesis on the social origin of classification schemes (1903) to the schemes of taste through which classes classify and are classified (Distinction, 1979). P. Bourdieu, La Distinction (1979), conclusion “Classes et classements”; É. Durkheim and M. Mauss, “De quelques formes primitives de classification”, L’Année sociologique 6 (1903)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Pierre Bourdieu › 1930–2002
Anthony Giddens
influenced ✓
Giddens read Durkheim, beside Marx and Weber, as a theorist of industrial society and its division of labour (Capitalism and Modern Social Theory, 1971; Durkheim, 1978). A. Giddens, Capitalism and Modern Social Theory (1971); Émile Durkheim: Selected Writings (ed., 1972); Durkheim (1978)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Anthony Giddens › b. 1938
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Taha Hussein taught
taught
Taha Hussein studied at the Sorbonne from 1915; Durkheim supervised part of his doctoral thesis on the social philosophy of Ibn Khaldun before his death in November 1917. UNESCO-IBE, “Taha Hussein (1889–1973)”, Prospects (Thinkers on Education); TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, “Tâhâ Hüseyin”
Evidence: AI draft
Taha Hussein › 1889–1973
Talcott Parsons
influenced
Parsons read Durkheim as moving from positivism to a voluntaristic theory of action in which internalised shared norms constitute social order (The Structure of Social Action, 1937). T. Parsons, The Structure of Social Action (1937), part II; H. Joas and W. Knöbl, Sozialtheorie (2004)
Evidence: AI draft
Talcott Parsons › 1902–1979
Robert K. Merton
influenced
Merton reworked Durkheim’s concept of anomie as a strain between culturally prescribed goals and the legitimate means available to reach them (‘Social Structure and Anomie’, 1938). R. K. Merton, “Social Structure and Anomie”, American Sociological Review 3 (1938); É. Durkheim, Le suicide (1897)
Evidence: AI draft
Robert K. Merton › 1910–2003
Erving Goffman
influenced
Goffman applied Durkheim’s notion of the sacred to everyday encounters: the self is honoured in small rituals of deference and demeanour (Interaction Ritual, 1967). E. Goffman, “The Nature of Deference and Demeanor”, American Anthropologist 58 (1956), in Interaction Ritual (1967); É. Durkheim, Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse (1912)
Evidence: AI draft
Erving Goffman › 1922–1982
Thomas Luckmann
influenced
Against a church-centred sociology of religion, Luckmann took up Durkheim’s functional view of religion as what binds individuals into a social order of meaning (The Invisible Religion, 1967). T. Luckmann, Das Problem der Religion in der modernen Gesellschaft (1963); The Invisible Religion (1967)
Evidence: AI draft
Thomas Luckmann › 1927–2016
Peter L. Berger
influenced
In The Sacred Canopy (1967) Berger used Durkheim’s concepts of the sacred and of anomie: religion shields the socially constructed order, the nomos, against the terror of anomy. P. L. Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (1967); É. Durkheim, Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse (1912)
Evidence: AI draft
Peter L. Berger › 1929–2017
Criticism
Criticized by 1
E. E. Evans-Pritchard
criticised by
Evans-Pritchard objected that Durkheim built his theory of religion on doubtful Australian ethnography and reduced the sacred to society worshipping itself (Theories of Primitive Religion, 1965). E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Theories of Primitive Religion (1965), ch. 3
Evidence: AI draft
E. E. Evans-Pritchard › 1902–1973
Criticizes 5
Herbert Spencer
criticised
Durkheim argued against Spencer that industrial society cannot rest on free contracts alone, since every contract presupposes non-contractual social rules (The Division of Labour in Society, 1893, I.7). É. Durkheim, De la division du travail social (1893), Book I, ch. 7
Evidence: AI draft
Herbert Spencer › 1820–1903
Wilhelm Wundt influenced by
influenced by ✓
During his study year in Germany (1885–86) Durkheim visited Wundt in Leipzig and took the project of an empirical science of morals from the German tradition he found there. Durkheim, “La science positive de la morale en Allemagne”, Revue philosophique 24 (1887), Wundt section; secondary reports on the study year (Berlin, Marburg, Leipzig)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
criticised
In his 1887 survey Durkheim criticised the position Wundt takes in the Ethik. Durkheim 1887 (Wundt section, Gallica scan of the Revue philosophique, seen in part); R. T. Hall (tr.), Durkheim, Ethics and the Sociology of Morals (1993)
Evidence: AI draft
Wilhelm Wundt › 1832–1920
Gabriel Tarde
criticised
Durkheim rejected Tarde’s explanation of social life by imitation between individuals, insisting on social facts that are external and constraining (Rules, 1895; Suicide, 1897, I.4). É. Durkheim, Les règles de la méthode sociologique (1895), ch. 1; Le suicide (1897), Book I, ch. 4
Evidence: AI draft
Gabriel Tarde › 1843–1904
Ferdinand Tönnies
criticised
Reviewing Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (1889), Durkheim objected that modern society is no less natural and organic than community, not a mere mechanical aggregate held together by the state. É. Durkheim, review of F. Tönnies, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, Revue philosophique 27 (1889)
Evidence: AI draft
Ferdinand Tönnies › 1855–1936
Georg Simmel
criticised
Durkheim objected that Simmel’s formal sociology separates the forms of association from their content too vaguely to found a science (‘La sociologie et son domaine scientifique’, 1900). É. Durkheim, “La sociologia ed il suo dominio scientifico”, Rivista italiana di sociologia 4 (1900)
Evidence: AI draft
Georg Simmel › 1858–1918
Works
His doctoral thesis: as the division of labour grows, the “mechanical” solidarity of likeness gives way to the “organic” solidarity of mutual dependence – against Spencer’s view that contract and self-interest alone hold society together.
Treat social facts as things.
- 1897Suicide
Even the rates of the most private of acts depend on social integration and regulation: egoistic, altruistic and anomic suicide – a model of sociology built on statistics.
From Australian totemism: religion divides the world into sacred and profane, and in worshipping the sacred a society worships itself; even the categories of thought have social origins.
Position
Durkheim insisted that society is a reality of its own, not just the sum of individuals. Social facts – laws, morals, language, religious practices – exist outside the individual and constrain him, and must be studied “as things”, objectively (The Rules of Sociological Method, 1895). In The Division of Labour in Society he distinguished two forms of social cohesion: mechanical solidarity, the bond of likeness in small societies with a strong collective consciousness and repressive law, and organic solidarity, the bond of difference in societies held together by the division of labour and by restitutive law such as contract. Rapid change can produce anomie, a state without guiding norms. Even the most private act shows the social: Suicide (1897) found rates that varied with social integration and regulation and distinguished egoistic, altruistic and anomic suicide. In The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912), drawing on reports of Australian totemism, he defined religion by the division between sacred and profane and argued that in its rites a society worships itself, renewed in moments of “collective effervescence”. Critics later faulted his functionalism and his reliance on second-hand ethnography; anthropology, structuralism and Bourdieu built on him.
Life & context
Émile Durkheim was born in 1858 in Épinal in Lorraine into a family of rabbis and studied at the École normale supérieure in Paris. After teaching philosophy at lycées and a study visit to German universities in 1885–86, he taught social science and education in Bordeaux from 1887, where in 1896 he founded the journal L’Année sociologique (first volume 1898); his doctoral thesis of 1893 was The Division of Labour in Society. During the Dreyfus affair he defended the Dreyfusards in “Individualism and the Intellectuals” (1898). From 1902 he taught at the Sorbonne, where he trained a school of collaborators, among them his nephew Marcel Mauss. The death of his son André on the Balkan front in the First World War broke him; he died in Paris in 1917.
Further main works
- Individualism and the Intellectuals (1898)
- Primitive Classification (with Marcel Mauss, 1903)
- Sociology and Philosophy (essays of 1898–1911, published 1924)
- Moral Education (lectures of 1902–03, published 1925)
- Professional Ethics and Civic Morals (lectures, published 1950)
Appears in
- Journey ‘How Sociology Emerged from Philosophy’ · Stop 12 of 12
- Journey ‘How Society Became Thinkable’ · Stop 5 of 12
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