Journal ofhttp://jcs.sagepub.

com/Sociology Classical

Sociology as subversion: Discussing the reproductive interpretations of Durkheim

Mlanie Plouviez Journal of Classical Sociology 2012 12: 428 DOI: 10.1177/1468795X12453271 The online version of this article can be found at: http://jcs.sagepub.com/content/12/3-4/428

Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com

Additional services and information for Journal of Classical Sociology can be found at: Email Alerts: http://jcs.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://jcs.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Citations: http://jcs.sagepub.com/content/12/3-4/428.refs.html

>> Version of Record - Sep 25, 2012 What is This?

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com at UNIV FED DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL on December 3, 2012

453271
2012

JCS123-410.1177/1468795X12453271Journal of Classical SociologyPlouviez

Special Issue article

Sociology as subversion: Discussing the reproductive interpretations of Durkheim

Mlanie Plouviez

Journal of Classical Sociology 12(3-4) 428448 The Author(s) 2012 Reprints and permission: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1468795X12453271 jcs.sagepub.com

Panthon-Assas University, France

Abstract
This article presents a critical analysis of a recurring interpretation of mile Durkheims sociology, namely that it views society as fixed in a rigid, instituted form, doomed to self-repetition, and impervious to any type of change except that of its own necessary internal development (see the work of Albert Bayet, Georges Sorel, Georges Gurvitch,Talcott Parsons, Robert Nisbet, or Raymond Boudon). It is argued here that this reproductive interpretation is based on Chapter 3 of The Rules of Sociological Method (1895), but that Durkheim himself rejected it altogether in his later writings. From his 1898 article, Individual and Collective Representations, to The Elementary Forms of Religious Life of 1912, Durkheim came to see one activity of society the transformative activity of collective ideation as unconcerned with the satisfaction of purely morphological needs.The point, however, is not that Durkheims sociology developed from a morphological approach governed by a principle of selfreproducibility to a psychological approach that transcends the production/reproduction dichotomy. The article argues instead that by neglecting the contribution of the discipline of sociology, and of the epistemological principles on which it is based, to the instituting activity of collective ideation, the reproductive interpretation offers only a partial reading of The Rules of Sociological Method: sociology, as a scientific form of collective ideation, actually instantiates its transformative, even subversive, force.

Keywords
Collective ideation, creativity, morphology, social change, social reproduction, sociology, subversion

The sociology of mile Durkheim has repeatedly been the target of a particular criticism: that it seeks to freeze society in a rigid, instituted form, doomed to self-repetition, and untouchable by any form of change except its own necessary internal development. This is, for example, the objection that Raymond Boudon advances in Theories of Social Change (1986 [1984]). In effect, Boudon argues, the sociological naturalism of
Corresponding author: Mlanie Plouviez, Michel Villey Institute, Paris II Panthon-Assas University, 12, place du Panthon, 75 231 Paris Cedex 05, France. Email: Melanie.Plouviez@u-paris2.fr

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com at UNIV FED DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL on December 3, 2012

Plouviez

429

Durkheims sociology leads to the denial of the possibility of action. In his view, it denies the possibility of individual action by reducing the individual to a being moved purely by society, stripped of all autonomy and hence of all subjectivity. More than this, according to this interpretation, Durkheims position denies the very concept of action by transferring it, via a hypostasized substantialism, from the individual subject to society. By equating action purely with the ongoing development of society towards its own selfrealization, it is held that Durkheim deprives the concept of action of one of its key dimensions: the ability to generate radical change, innovation, and subversion. For Boudon, the action of society cannot be creative, because it stifles the only possible source of creativity, namely the individual. This article seeks to demonstrate that, far from undermining the concept of action, Durkheim gives it new meaning. By the action of society, he does not mean action in which the individual is the acting subject and society the object, since for Durkheim the idea that the individual can act upon society is an illusion, based on a view of society as a construct and individual free will as fundamental. Nor does he mean action in which society is the acting subject and the individual the object, since he sees the action of society as something far larger than the reductive leveling of individual behavior. The action of society is the action of society upon itself. But is such action necessarily selfreproducing? Does it foreclose the possibility of individual action? Is it open to transformation and radical change? When society acts, can it act in opposition to the very forms in which it is institutionalized? In contesting the reproductive interpretation (to be outlined in the first part of this article) that sees Durkheims sociology as merely sanctifying the self-reproducing action of society, I seek to show instead that his sociology not only offers an account of the transformative activity of collective ideation (second part), but actually instantiates its subversive force (third part).

The reproductive interpretation of Durkheims sociology

Durkheims earlier writings (The Division of Labor in Society, The Rules of Sociological Method) gave rise to a commonly accepted interpretation according to which sociology as he both theorized and practiced it is simply the sanctification of the self-reproducing activity of society. This interpretation, which I call here the reproductive interpretation, is to be found, in part or in whole, among authors as diverse as Paul Bureau, Albert Bayet, Georges Sorel, Georges Gurvitch, Talcott Parsons, Robert Nisbet, and Raymond Boudon. In this first part, I wish to present this reproductive interpretation and its textual foundations before criticizing it in the two following parts.

A triptych:The general, the normal, and the healthy

In his early writings, Durkheim argues that the practical effectiveness of sociology depends on its ability to define the state of moral health (Durkheim, 1993 [1893]: xxvii), also called the normal state or normal type (Durkheim, 1982 [1895]: 91). This

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com at UNIV FED DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL on December 3, 2012

430

Journal of Classical Sociology 12(3-4)

undertaking, whose methodological rules are set out in Chapter 3 of The Rules of Sociological Method (Durkheim, 1982 [1895]: 85107), is one of the main bases of the reproductive interpretation. Chapter 3 of The Rules of Sociological Method, entitled Rules for the Distinction between the Normal and the Pathological, is a surprising departure from the overall approach of the work. In the other chapters, Durkheim lays out the methodological rules by means of which sociologists can, despite their closeness to their object of study, maintain a position of evaluative and axiological impartiality; here, however, he claims that sociology has practical effectiveness (Durkheim, 1982 [1895]: 85). But this chapter does not mistake scientific knowledge for its practical application. It attempts, rather, to show that the two are methodologically sequential. Sociology must be first scientific, then practical. More precisely, practical implications can be derived from its scientific conclusions. The scientific value of theoretical sociology and the rationality of the practical applications that result from it depend on this methodological sequence. However, such a sequence, no matter how purely methodological it purports to be, presupposes that it is possible to derive values from facts, should from is. Is it possible and legitimate, despite Humes veto, to proceed from knowledge of how a society is to the prescription of how it must or should be? To this question, Chapter 3 of The Rules of Sociological Method gives an affirmative answer, centered on the concept of the normal. Durkheim here defines the normal in two ways, partly in terms of generality, partly in terms of health. According to the first definition,
a social fact can only be termed normal in a given species in relation to a particular phase, likewise determinate, of its development. Consequently, to know whether the term normal is merited for a social fact, it is not enough to observe the form in which it occurs in the majority of societies which belong to a species: we must also be careful to observe the societies at the corresponding phase of their evolution. (1982 [1895]: 92)

For instance, according to this first definition, crime is a normal social phenomenon because it occurs in all societies. More precisely, for a given type of society at a given moment in its development, criminality is only a pathological social fact when the crime rate is lower or higher than the average rate observed in societies of the same type. As determined by the scientific criterion of generality, the normal on this first definition is an existing fact, the subject of a descriptive statement. The normal state is a scientific concept, subject via the criterion of generality to empirical corroboration. According to the second definition, normal phenomena are those that are entirely appropriate, whereas pathological phenomena are those that should be different from what they are (Durkheim, 1982 [1895]: 85). For instance, according to this second definition, crime is a normal social phenomenon, because it is an integrative element in any healthy society (Durkheim, 1982 [1895]: 98): a society without crime would in effect be a society with no possibility of dissent or transformation, that is to say, a sick society collaborating in its own demise. As determined by the criterion of the state of health, normality in this second definition is an ideal to be achieved, the subject of a value

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com at UNIV FED DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL on December 3, 2012

Plouviez

431

judgment. The normal state is a practical concept that identifies, via the concept of health, both that which is entirely appropriate and thus constitutes an ideal to be achieved, and also that which, because it should be different from what it is, is a pathology to be avoided or corrected. Thus normality is at once indicated in phenomena by the fact of its generality and an indicator of the ideal: that is, the state of health. Because of the intermediate position it occupies in the triptych of the general, the normal, and the healthy, the concept of the normal is the operator that allows sociologists to derive value judgments and practical prescriptions from their empirical conclusions. The normal state is the tool with which Durkheims sociology can possess practical effectiveness without shirking its duties as a science.

Societys self-maintenance
But, in The Rules of Sociological Method, generality is not only the scientific criterion by which the normal social fact can be recognized; more fundamentally, it is the criterion of any social fact:
A social fact is any way of acting, whether fixed or not, capable of exerting over the individual an external constraint; or: which is general over the whole of a given society whilst having an existence of its own, independent of its individual manifestations. (Durkheim, 1982 [1895]: 59)

To avoid confusing genus with species, the type of generality characteristic of the social fact must be distinguished from that characteristic of the normal social fact. In Chapter 1 of The Rules of Sociological Method, entitled What is a Social Fact?, Durkheim defines the generality of a social fact in terms of its widespread presence in a given society a presence that results not, as in the sociology of Gabriel Tarde, from the spreading of some individual action via imitation,1 but from the coercion that the social fact is able to exert on each individual consciousness. In other words, a social fact is not social because it is general, but general because it is social. To put it in a different way, the criterion of generality is dependent on that of coercion: the generality of the social fact results from its power over individual behavior. Durkheim says in Chapter 3 that what constitutes the generality of the normal social fact is not only its widespread presence in a given society, but specifically its similar frequency within all societies that are of the same social type and are considered to be at an equivalent stage of development. The normal social fact is not only, like all social facts, general in a given society. What differentiates it from the pathological social fact is that it is also general among all societies of the same social type. The definition of the normal social fact as one that is widespread in all societies of the same social type is based on its constitutive role in the conditions of existence of the social type in question.
Consequently the normality of a phenomenon can be explained only through it being bound up with the conditions of existence in the species under consideration, either as the

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com at UNIV FED DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL on December 3, 2012

432

Journal of Classical Sociology 12(3-4)

mechanically essential effect of these conditions or as a means allowing the organism to adapt to these conditions. (Durkheim, 1982 [1895]: 94)

A normal social fact is general either because it results from the state of health of the social type in which it appears, or because it contributes to it. Thus, in the vocabulary of The Division of Labor in Society, tinged as it still is with organicism, the normal social fact is one that conforms to the vital order of the social organism, or even promotes it; the pathological social fact, by contrast, is one that disrupts it. In the more morphological language of The Rules of Sociological Method, the normal social fact is one that contributes to the functioning of the internal social environment; the pathological social fact, by contrast, is one that disturbs it. Underlying these differences in wording stands an identical social purposiveness, revealed by the concept of normality: every society seeks to maintain itself. What are the implications of Durkheims assertion? Customs, rules, values, and beliefs, whether they are religious, moral, legal, or political, are all so many efforts on the part of the society in which they occur to maintain itself as a cohesive whole. Social facts and the various institutions through which they are crystallized are the means by which society manages its own continuity. This function [that social phenomena are expected to fulfill] consists in a number of cases at least, in maintaining the pre-existent cause from which the phenomena derive (Durkheim, 1982 [1895]: 124, emphasis added). A complete explanation of social phenomena thus requires the elucidation of their functional relationship with society, understood as a self-maintaining whole. A particularly telling illustration of this claim can be found in Durkheims understanding of criminal law. In The Division of Labor in Society, he defines punishment or penal sanction as an emotional reaction from the community (Durkheim, 1993 [1893]: 66). Punishment is more precisely the reaction of the collective consciousness to an act that it calls criminal because it offends the collective sentiments that constitute it. It is thus a defensive reaction through which the collective consciousness condemns attacks that weaken it.
Its real function is to maintain inviolate the cohesion of society by sustaining the common consciousness in all its vigor. If that consciousness were thwarted so categorically, it would necessarily lose some of its power, were an emotional reaction from the community not forthcoming to make good that loss. Thus there would result a relaxation in the bonds of social solidarity. The consciousness must therefore be conspicuously reinforced the moment it meets with opposition. (Durkheim, 1993 [1893]: 63, emphasis added)

In societies characterized by mechanical solidarity, where it is predominant, the function of punishment is to restore the social homogeneity that is threatened by crime. Consequently, criminal law is not only the visible symbol of mechanical solidarity; it works to maintain that solidarity by reactivating it. By directing the collective feelings, which have been weakened by crime, against the body of the criminal, it restores the

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com at UNIV FED DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL on December 3, 2012

Plouviez

433

strength and tenacity of those feelings. In short, the predominant role of criminal law in societies characterized by mechanical solidarity is a normal social phenomenon that follows from their conditions of existence as a mechanically necessary effect: punishment is the social institution through which societies characterized by mechanical solidarity work to maintain the social homogeneity on which they are based, when they see themselves threatened by criminal dissidence. However, societies characterized by mechanical solidarity are not static entities stuck in the uniform reproduction of social homogeneity. As Durkheim says in The Division of Labor in Society, they are affected by the progress of the division of labor, which leads them from an initially homogeneous state toward a heterogeneous structure. They evolve from mechanical solidarity, the result of the uniform application of social constraints, to organic solidarity, which arises out of functional interdependence. In other words, societies, even when governed by the goal of homeostatic self-maintenance, do not perpetuate themselves in repetitive immobility but instead are transformed through an evolving dynamic. However, in spite of these transformations, or even because of them, societies always seek to maintain themselves. The multiple changes that a society undergoes are the means for it to adapt to new conditions of existence: that is to say, to maintain itself. We can see a telling illustration of this claim in Durkheims understanding of contract law. Following Henry Sumner Maine (1864 [1861]: 288) and Herbert Spencer (1966 [1882]: 611, 614), Durkheim recognized that what characterizes modern societies is the generalizing of contractual relations: the contract tends to become the dominant form that social ties take in many, otherwise disparate, societies, to such an extent that [m]ost of our relationships with others are of a contractual nature (Durkheim, 1993 [1983]: 161). However, no matter how numerous and varied they are, private contracts do not function in isolation. According to Durkheims famous aphorism in a contract not everything is contractual (Durkheim, 1993 [1893]: 158) the presence of contracting parties is only one of the necessary conditions of the contract, and in no way a sufficient condition. To have legal force, the contracting parties must be supplemented, in fact framed, by a regulatory force that is imposed by society and not by individuals (Durkheim, 1993 [1893]: 158). The parties are thus sources of law only insofar as they conform to social regulation. Far from possessing a priori the power of enforcement, as is argued by legal individualism, they acquire it a posteriori from society by satisfying societys demands. But modern societies do not delegate their legal authority, except with a view to maintaining themselves. In other words, contractual obligation is the means used by modern societies to hold themselves together in the face of the existence of individual diversity and by making use of the diverse individuals whom they contain. In fact, in the modern societies that have resulted from the division of labor, individual activities can no longer be regulated by a uniform, external structure that fails to take account of their diversity. Any such structure must be immanent and adapted to the variety of individual activities it regulates. The contract, as a social fact, is appropriate to this type of structure. Here too, the predominance of the contract in societies characterized by organic solidarity is a normal social phenomenon that enables them to adapt to their new conditions of existence: the contract is the social institution through which modern societies maintain themselves as cohesive wholes despite the fact of social heterogeneity.2

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com at UNIV FED DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL on December 3, 2012

434

Journal of Classical Sociology 12(3-4)

A society that maintains itself, therefore, is not a society mired in self-repetition, but one that transforms itself by continuously adapting to its conditions of existence. Society maintains itself by unfolding regularly and inevitably, following its inclination toward a state of health that only accidental obstacles can interfere with. It is in these exogenous disruptions that the sociologists margin of intervention is to be found.

Sociological conformism
Durkheims early work identifies two types of disruption capable of interfering with the natural and regular advance of society toward the state of health or normal state. The first consists of phenomena of inertia that are typical of periods of transition:
In that situation the only normal type extant at the time and grounded in the facts is one that relates to the past but no longer corresponds to the new conditions of existence. A fact can therefore persist through a whole species but no longer correspond to the requirements of the situation. It therefore has only the appearance of normality . (Durkheim, 1982 [1895]: 9495)

For example, a rule in positive law that is retained out of sheer force of habit and does not reflect changing mores is a pathological phenomenon. In these periods of transition, a society may fail to be all that it should be because one of its components lags behind the rest. It is then the task of sociology to predict the normal type that is best adapted to the new conditions of existence and to facilitate its advent. It must restore society to what it should be by anticipating its future. From science comes prevision; from prevision comes action: this intervention on the part of the sociologist is based on Auguste Comtes model of scientific prediction (Comte, 1988 [18301842]: 38). The second type of disruption is more akin to disease. Society may be other than it should be because it is affected by pathologies that are deviations from the state of health. Sociology, then, using the benchmark constituted by the state of health, should identify these deviations in order to eliminate or correct them. Through its knowledge of the pathologies of the social body and of the remedies needed to heal them, it can promote the restoration of the normal state. The intervention of the sociologist in this case is based on the model, also derived from Comte, of sociology as therapy. On this view, the only legitimate sociological intervention, then, is that which, taking the normal state of society as its benchmark, seeks to maintain it either through correction or forecasting: it is necessary to work steadily and persistently to maintain the normal state, to re-establish it if it is disturbed, and to rediscover the conditions of normality if they happen to change (Durkheim, 1982 [1895]: 104, emphasis added). Thus, the sociologists margin of intervention seems small. In effect, the intervention of the sociologist is itself normalized by the ideal of the society under investigation the achievement of the normal type or state of health. In other words, the practical prescriptions of the sociologist cannot propose an ideal other than the one that the society under investigation tends naturally toward. These prescriptions can at best speed up its arrival or help restore it. In this perspective, sociology merely interprets the natural tendency by

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com at UNIV FED DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL on December 3, 2012

Plouviez

435

which a society maintains itself. It may not modify that tendency, much less create a new one, without abandoning its ambition to be a genuine science and without putting society itself at risk. Moreover, the normal type, a state of health, is already somewhat difficult to determine and rarely enough attained for us to exercise our imagination to find something better (Durkheim, 1982 [1895]: 106). Sociology should reflect the evolution of society, and not take to imagining other possible social changes. It must simply record a necessary social change, one that it is not capable of modifying. Hence, sociological intervention, being necessarily limited, calls for a prudently conservative disposition of mind (Durkheim, 1993 [1893]: xxviii). Thanks to the concept of normality, sociology and social reform are indeed reconciled, but at the cost of conformism on the part of sociology.

The reproductive interpretation of Durkheims sociology

Durkheims earlier writings seem to assign the work of self-maintenance to societies and insist on conformism in sociology. For these reasons, they gave rise to a commonly accepted interpretation according to which Durkheims sociology is simply the sanctification of the self-reproducing activity of society. I call this interpretation the reproductive interpretation. A typical example of the reproductive interpretation occurs in a work by Paul Bureau, Introduction la mthode sociologique, which presents a critical commentary on Chapter 3 of The Rules of Sociological Method.3 In this work Bureau questions the legitimacy of the path taken by Durkheim from fact to value by way of the concept of normality. According to Bureau, when Durkheim claims to derive an ethical ideal from a knowledge of ethical facts, the ideals that he discovers are simply the rules of morality already operating in society. But such ethical prescriptions in no way add up to a genuine system of ethical values:
This is very far from the establishment of a system of values, since the essence of such a system is that it asserts what ought to be as against what is, in an urgent call to go beyond actual conditions so as to replace them with better principles. (Bureau, 1923: 261)

According to Bureau, morality cannot be reduced to the currently established body of prohibitions that regulate individual behavior. It is, rather, a counterfactual optimum that both transcends and contests such a body of prohibitions. Durkheims misconception, on this account, arises precisely because he holds up society as both the source and the end of morality. But for Bureau, that which is moral in the true sense is not the body of assorted rules that society imposes on individuals in order to sustain its normal functioning; on the contrary, it is something that the individual proposes in opposition to society. Morality is the force of affirmation and resistance that the individual opposes to the leveling, constraining might of society. In other words, in Bureaus view, Durkheim reduces morality to its most inflexible and rigid elements, those that have become petrified within the social body, while the most fully alive and

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com at UNIV FED DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL on December 3, 2012

436

Journal of Classical Sociology 12(3-4)

most important elements, the individual values that are not reducible to the social body and cannot be expressed in it, escape his notice (Bureau, 1923: 91). And according to Bureau, to reduce morality to one of societys functions is to detach it from the only source of creativity it can possess: the individual. In this way, Durkheim is argued to have subjected ethics to a conformism and conservatism that makes any real reform impossible. Bureau thus attacks the cowardly and narrow traditionalism within which Durkheim confines ethics by assimilating it to the commonly accepted and practiced (Bureau, 1923: 264265). Other critics, like, for instance, Albert Bayet, Georges Sorel, Georges Gurvitch, Talcott Parsons, Robert Nisbet, and Raymond Boudon, share this interpretation, namely that Durkheims sociology sanctifies societys self-reproducing activity. This is not sanctification in a weak sense: it is not by abstaining from social transformation that Durkheims sociology is argued to sanctify societys activity. They argue that his position sanctifies it in the strong sense: that is, through its normative prescriptions it reinforces societys self-reproducing activity. And the concept that thus subordinates the practical effectiveness of sociology to the maintenance of the vital functions of society is the concept of normality. In other words, on this interpretation, Durkheims sociology is not satisfied merely to study social phenomena scientifically; it focuses on the social in its material existence, in its crystallized forms, and in its self-reproductive purpose. Those who advance this reproductive interpretation all describe what they consider to be the misplaced reduction of the social by Durkheims sociology in terms of the denial of individual characteristics and their hypostasis at the level of the collectivity. Durkheim wanted to view the individual subject as a being activated by (even created by) the social. But these critics argued that by elevating society to the point where it is identified as the exclusive source of action, Durkheim eliminated any possibility of innovation, creation, or subversion: the activity of society would then amount to nothing more than a process of steady evolution, with the sole purpose of maintaining and expanding itself while eliminating radical change or upheaval of any kind. Through this hypostasized substantialism, Durkheim is interpreted to have discarded the only real source of creativity: individuals and their capacity for opposition and subversion of crystallized society. According to the reproductive interpretation, through its prescriptive assertions Durkheims sociology prioritizes societys reproductive activity over the individuals productive activity, from a conservative, traditionalist position.

The transformative action of collective ideation

According to the reproductive interpretation, Durkheim disconnects society from the individual and dooms it to mere repetition of itself as a material entity. We have seen that the textual foundations for this interpretation are to be found in Chapter 3 of The Rules of Sociological Method. However, in Durkheims later writings this position is firmly rejected. From the 1898 article Individual and Collective Representations to The Elementary Forms of Religious Life of 1912, Durkheim in fact comes to conceive of a kind of social activity that is freed from the mere satisfaction of morphological needs, but is more than the mere juxtaposition or diffusion of individual innovating

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com at UNIV FED DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL on December 3, 2012

Plouviez

437

actions. In these texts, society in action is a creative power, in fact the most creative force in existence:
Society does indeed have at its disposal a creative power that no observable being can match. Every creation, unless it is a mystical procedure that escapes science and intellect, is in fact the product of a synthesis. If the syntheses of particular representations that occur within each individual consciousness are already, in and of themselves, productive of novelties, how much more effective must societies be these vast syntheses of entire consciousnesses! (Durkheim, 1995 [1912]: 447)

The activity of collective ideation that is creative because it is synthesizing thus constitutes the first departure from the reproductive interpretation.

The synthesizing activity of collective ideation

In his 1898 essay Individual and Collective Representations (Durkheim, 1953 [1924]: 148) and in the 1901 preface to the second edition of The Rules of Sociological Method (Durkheim, 1982 [1895]: 3447), Durkheim describes the material and spiritual dimensions of the social as temporally related. Maxims, values, ideals, and beliefs what Durkheim calls, beginning with the 1898 essay, collective representations or collective ideation find their origins in society, or, more precisely, society in its material, crystallized aspect, referred to as the social organism, the social body, or the social structure. Society produces collective representations in response to its morphological needs or, rather, it reproduces itself morphologically through the production of collective representations.
Also, while it is through the collective substratum that collective life is connected to the rest of the world, it is not absorbed in it. It is at the same time dependent on and distinct from it, as is the function of the organ. As it is born of the collective substratum the forms which it manifests at the time of its origin, and which are consequently fundamental, naturally bear the marks of their origin. For this reason the basic matter of the social consciousness is in close relation with the number of social elements and the way in which they are grouped and distributed, etc. that is to say, with the nature of the substratum. (Durkheim, 1953 [1924]: 3031)

Thus, for example, totemic beliefs are explained by reference to the clan structure of the societies in which they develop. However, such a morphological explanation is limited in scope. As Durkheim says, it takes account only of the basic matter of the social consciousness. While it may be able to explain the genesis of mental social life, following the reproductive principles of the social body, it cannot explain its subsequent development. In other words, the reproductive interpretation arises from extending an explanation to the whole of social life and its later developments that in fact applies only to its original forms. As Durkheim says:

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com at UNIV FED DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL on December 3, 2012

438

Journal of Classical Sociology 12(3-4)

But once a basic number of representations has thus been created, they become partially autonomous realities with their own way of life. They have the power to attract and repel each other and to form among themselves various syntheses, which are determined by their natural affinities and not by the condition of their matrix. (1953 [1924]: 31)

Myths and legends, religious notions, and ethical systems, developing in what Durkheim calls a luxuriant manner (1953 [1924]: 31), do not have the state of the social structure as their cause and do not have its maintenance as their function. They are created by preceding collective representations. Collective ideation, the tendency of each collective representation to form a new synthesis, is therefore an activity that is largely independent of the reproductive needs of social morphology. Synthesis is not an infertile phenomenon. Every synthesis is a creative synthesis or a sui generis synthesis. Every synthesis of collective representations in turn creates new collective representations. Collective ideation is thus a creative activity. This is also what, beyond the distinction between collective representation and individual representation, distinguishes Durkheims collective ideation from Humes concept of the imagination. For Hume the imagination is the faculty of the association of ideas. Yet the association of ideas does not, strictly speaking, create new ideas, only links between existing ideas. According to an example given by Hume in his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1975 [1748]), the imagination, when it fantasizes a combination of the ideas of mountain and of gold, juxtaposes rather than synthesizes them.4 In the same way, when the imagination regularly associates the ideas of bread and that of nutrition, it links them in terms of cause and effect.5 In short, the imagination according to Hume is unlimited in the number of combinations it can invent, but has a limited stock of materials: its combinations will never increase the number of ideas available for combination. In contrast, synthesis in Durkheims sense, far from simply organizing existing collective representations, creates entirely new ones. Collective ideation, when it synthesizes two collective representations, creates a new immaterial reality. Collective ideation, far from having a limited stock of materials, is a kind of immaterial flow: the collective representations it synthesizes increase in number along with its synthesizing activity. Hence the luxuriance that characterizes it. Society, as an immaterial activity, is a creative activity because it is a synthesizing activity. Society, in its mental dimensions, constitutes a creative power. Contrary to what the reproductive interpretation claims, collective ideation is the place where genuine social creativity takes place, with no morphological origin or purpose. Sociology in turn, insofar as it studies the laws of collective ideation, does not sanctify the reproductive principles of the social structure. It illuminates the creative principles through which collective representations become independent of the social structure. However, the creative activity of collective ideation does not provide a complete explanation. Indeed, if it is not the social structure, what is it that makes collective ideation form syntheses, and form one synthesis rather than another? Collective ideation is led to synthesize one collective representation rather than another, says Durkheim, under the influence of the

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com at UNIV FED DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL on December 3, 2012

Plouviez

439

natural affinities they exhibit (Durkheim, 1953 [1924]: 31), in the same way that the imagination, in Humes theory, is led to associate ideas by their associating qualities (Hume, 2001 [17391740]: 1214 [Part 1, Section 4, Of the Connection or Association of Ideas]). But what is it that determines the natural affinities of collective representations? These natural affinities cannot be determined directly or indirectly by the social structure, for then the activity of collective ideation would lose its independence and creative power. What is it then that determines them? Does not the activity of collective ideation, precisely because of its creativity, evade explanation in sociological terms, at least in part?

The instituting activity of collective ideation

In the conclusion to his last book, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1995 [1912]), Durkheim came to propose a complete sociological explanation for the mechanism of social production, one that freed him altogether from the reproductive interpretation. Here he uncovered a basis for creative synthesis that recognizes the independence of collective ideation from the social structure.
The product of this synthesis is a whole world of feelings, ideas, and images that follow their own laws once they are born. They mutually attract one another, repel one another, fuse together, subdivide, and proliferate; and none of these combinations is directly commanded and necessitated by the state of the underlying reality. Indeed, the life thus unleashed enjoys such great independence that it sometimes plays about in forms that have no aim or utility of any kind, but only for the pleasure of affirming itself. (Durkheim, 1995 [1912]: 426)

It is not because syntheses are useful for the social structure that collective ideation forms them. Synthesizing is a profligate activity, carried on for the pleasure of affirming itself (Durkheim, 1995 [1912]: 426). The principles of collective ideation are in this respect opposed to those of the social body: while the latter acts in a self-interested way guided by the principle of social utility, the former acts in a disinterested way guided by the principle of profligacy. Society does not act only morphologically, for the sole purpose of maintaining its vital functions. It acts spiritually that is to say, synthetically without counting the cost and for the pleasure of acting (Durkheim, 1953 [1924]: 86). Thus if collective ideation is luxuriant, it is so because it is luxurious, which constitutes an anti-utilitarian argument against the reproductive interpretation. However, this synthesizing activity of collective ideation is not without an effect on the social structure.
A society can neither create nor recreate itself without creating some kind of ideal by the same stroke. This creation is not a sort of optional extra step by which society, being already made, merely adds finishing touches; it is the act by which society makes itself, and remakes itself, periodically. (Durkheim, 1995 [1912]: 425)

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com at UNIV FED DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL on December 3, 2012

440

Journal of Classical Sociology 12(3-4)

The purpose of the social production of ideals is neither reproduction nor completion. Social production is not subordinate to the purpose of social reproduction. The social production of ideals is a dynamic by means of which society creates and recreates itself, makes itself, and remakes itself, periodically. Ideals, which are the creation of society, in turn create society. According to the perceptive phrase of Georges Gurvitch, ideals are themselves both producers and products of social life (1995 [1937]: 37). Contrary to the reproductive interpretation, the social production of ideals functions not to reproduce society, but rather to create it endlessly. The synthesizing activity of collective ideation is an instituting activity. It must be added, however, that in this instituting activity the opposition of production to reproduction is transcended. The instituting activity of collective ideation reveals the dynamics of production and reproduction through which every society creates and recreates itself periodically. As Hans Joas writes, it illuminates the alternating play of the institution and the instituting process in which every social ideal is caught up (1994: 70). The social creation of ideals thus reveals all the more clearly the permeability of the categories of social production and reproduction, in that it subordinates neither one to the other. Collective ideation, far from being subject to the reproductive principles of the social structure, is a social dynamic. But there is another opposition assumed by the reproductive interpretation that disregards the instituting activity of collective ideation: that of the individual to society. Society is not, for Durkheim, some external entity that dominates individuals and makes them act like automata. Society is ourselves or, rather, the best part of us (Durkheim, 1953 [1924]: 55). Society is immanent in us because we are the place and the condition of its existence. The fact that collective ideation has its own laws does not mean that it is detached from its only possible substratum the individual consciousness. However, while being immanent in individual consciousnesses, society still transcends them. Society is within us, the best part of us: that is to say, this assembly of ideas, feelings, beliefs and precepts of conduct that we call civilization (Durkheim, 1953 [1924]: 55). In other words, society is us insofar as we are reflective beings. Society, far from being a substantial entity, means a system of thought that is immanent in individual consciousnesses, but which, as its inherent creative force demonstrates, does not proceed from them. Collective ideation is precisely that mental activity which, though taking place within us, transcends and exalts us. Collective ideation, without acting upon us, enables us to act. Far from precluding individual action, social action is what makes it possible.

The subversive capacity of sociology

The analysis of collective ideation on which Durkheim focuses in his later writings undermines the oppositions set up by the reproductive interpretation between individual and society and between creation and reproduction. Does this mean that Durkheims sociology evolved from an initially morphological approach governed by the reproductive principles of the social body to an ultimately psychological approach that transcends the production/reproduction dichotomy? If the reproductive interpretation can be called into question in the case of Durkheims mature work, is it still relevant as a description of his youthful writings? I will seek here to show that the reproductive interpretation

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com at UNIV FED DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL on December 3, 2012

Plouviez

441

provides only a partial account of The Rules of Sociological Method because it ignores the contribution of sociology and of its epistemological rules to the instituting activity of collective ideation. A further move away from the reproductive interpretation is thus possible, drawn from The Rules of Sociological Method itself.

The constituent gap of social meaning6

I come back to the process of collective ideation. Every ideal is the idea [a society] has of itself (Durkheim, 1995 [1912]: 425), the way the group thinks of itself in its relationships with the objects which affect it, or the way in which society conceives of itself and the world that surrounds it (Durkheim, 1982 [1895]: 40). Collective ideation is the reflexive consciousness of which a group is capable. However, according to Durkheim, such self-consciousness is not acquired at once. A society progressively becomes aware of itself. Collective ideation is not the consciousness that the group possesses of itself, but the consciousness that it progressively acquires of itself.7 In other words, the reflexivity of collective ideation is not and cannot be immediate. Groups do not possess selfconsciousness as immediately given. They are not immediately transparent to themselves, nor do they instantly apprehend their own significance. If they become self-conscious, this can only be through a gradual process. It should also be said that, for Durkheim, this process has no end-point. In other words, the reflexivity of collective ideation is never complete. A collectivity is neither totally unconscious nor totally self-conscious: it becomes more and better aware of itself (Durkheim, 1953 [1924]: 66). This quantitative and qualitative process of increasing self-consciousness, while it allows access to a higher awareness of itself, will never dissolve into the complete transparency of society to itself. In this way, Durkheim escapes the objection to the hypostasis of the individual subject at the level of the collectivity advanced by the reproductive interpretation. Society is not a substantial entity fully aware of itself and independent from the individuals, but the mental existence of individuals. Thus a society that becomes more and better aware of itself is nothing other than a community of individuals whose nature as social beings is strengthened: that is to say, of spiritual beings (Durkheim, 1995 [1912]: 379). Thus society is never the direct subject of self-consciousness. In others words, the reflexivity of collective ideation never operates directly. Society reaches a higher level of self-consciousness not by itself, but through intermediaries. Foremost among these aids to the growth of self-consciousness is religion: Religion is in a word the system of symbols by means of which society becomes conscious of itself (Durkheim, 1951 [1897]: 312). The elementary form of religion that is totem-worship is a classic illustration of this. The totem is a material object that is less a representation of the totemic animal or plant than a symbol of the group. By expressing the social unit tangibly, the totem makes the unit itself more tangible to all (Durkheim, 1995 [1912]: 231). This does not mean that the clan projects onto the totem the idea it already has of itself. On the contrary, it only acquires such a representation of itself through the totem. The clan can gain a clear idea of itself only through the material object that is the totem. Modern societies can also reach a higher degree of self-consciousness through social objects such as the national flag. But it is in the state that they find their principal aid to the growth

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com at UNIV FED DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL on December 3, 2012

442

Journal of Classical Sociology 12(3-4)

of self-consciousness: the state is a special organ whose responsibility is to work out certain representations which hold good for the collectivity. These representations are distinguished from the other collective representations by their higher degree of consciousness and reflection (Durkheim, 1957 [1950]: 50). Societies characterized by organic solidarity, because they are highly differentiated, need the mediation of a central organ that is, the state in order to reach a clearer and more advanced self-consciousness. Collective ideation, with its increased clarity and intelligence, is thus the product not of society itself but of the state, which communicates it to society. Every group presents thus a gap with regard to itself: it cannot represent itself directly; it is condemned to apprehend itself clearly only through intermediaries. This is what Bruno Karsenti calls the constituent gap of social meaning, or the impossibility of coincidence between the group and the meaning that it bears (Karsenti, 2001: 238; see also Karsenti, 2006: 2529). Because of this gap, collective ideation is torn between conflicting demands, that of being diffused and that of being clear. Either it is widely diffused because it has been developed collectively, meaning that it is confused, unintentional, and unreflective, or else it is clear, intentional, and reflective, but its diffusion is limited because it has been developed by a specific class or group. In modern societies characterized by organic solidarity, the impossibility of collective representations that are simultaneously diffused and clear is attested especially, as we have just seen, in the separation of society from the state. I will show now that it is also manifested in the distinction between common sense and sociological knowledge. In other words, modern societies with a highly centralized state are also societies that assign the production of knowledge about themselves to a group of professionals. Or to put it differently, sociology is, in modern societies, one aid to the growth of self-consciousness. This is what is suggested by the famous injunction concerning preconceptions in The Rules of Sociological Method.

Sociology, an aid to the growth of self-consciousness in modern societies

In Chapter 2 of The Rules of Sociological Method, Durkheim says that one must systematically discard all preconceptions (1982 [1895]: 72). This rule is commonly interpreted as recommending a radical epistemological break between common sense and sociology, which would prevent the insinuation of lay sociology into scientific sociology.8 Interpreted this way, it means that sociologists must disabuse themselves of ordinary representations and beliefs. To do this, they must take as their objects the social facts themselves, not the unreflective, experiential, epistemologically inconsistent representations that people have of them. On this interpretation, sociology cannot be scientific unless it sets itself up in opposition to common-sense knowledge and rejects it. The consequence of this way of interpreting Durkheim is that sociologists can truly know the objects they study only if they tear themselves away from the close connections they have had with them. For Durkheim, preconceptions are spontaneous notions, formed unmethodically for practical purposes. This makes them the opposite in every way of sociological concepts. However, what preconceptions and sociological concepts have in common is that both

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com at UNIV FED DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL on December 3, 2012

Plouviez

443

are impersonal, social representations. Preconceptions are impersonal, familiar notions, self-evident to everyone, which combine to form common opinion or common sense.9 Science is also defined by Durkheim as impersonal thought: science is not an individual; it is a social thing, pre-eminently impersonal (Durkheim, 1953 [1924]: 66). In other words, sociology is not opposed to collective conscience: it is one form of collective ideation among others. More precisely, sociology is the scientific form of collective ideation. Consequently, the distinction between preconceptions and sociological concepts is less an absolute epistemological dichotomy than a difference between two forms of collective ideation. Collective ideation can follow the path of opinion or common knowledge. In that case it will be pre-conceptual. But it can also follow the path of science. In that case it will be sociological. Preconceptions and sociological concepts are two different forms of collective ideation, and as such are affected by the constituent gap of social meaning. They cannot be both widely diffused and clear. Collective ideation in its pre-conceptual form is certainly widely diffused, but also confused. Although it is thinking that is performed by members of society, it fails to reach an adequate understanding of society as an object of knowledge. Collective ideation that takes the form of sociology is certainly clear, but its diffusion is limited. It achieves an adequate understanding of society as an object of knowledge, but those who achieve that understanding are limited to a body of professionals. Sociological knowledge, like preconceptions, can in no way lead to the complete coincidence of a group with itself. But by systematically discarding preconceptions, do sociologists not guide the preconceptual social thinking toward scientific knowledge? By systematically discarding preconceptions and replacing them with sociological concepts, sociology brings collective consciousness closer to sociological knowledge. It gives society access to that higher self-consciousness that is scientific self-knowledge. In stating the methodological injunction that one must systematically discard all preconceptions, Durkheim advocates neither the rejection of common-sense knowledge in favor of the sociologists scientific knowledge, nor the dilution of scientific knowledge by common-sense knowledge. He calls instead for guiding common-sense knowledge toward sociological knowledge. In this way, he makes sociology the specific form of mediation through which modern societies will learn more and more about themselves. Society arrives at this fuller consciousness only by science (Durkheim, 1953 [1924]: 66). Because it replaces preconceptions with scientific concepts, sociology is a potential aid to the growth of self-consciousness and perhaps the best possible aid to the growth of self-consciousness for modern societies.

Sociology, the driver of transformation in modern societies

The highest level of self-consciousness that a group attains alters the group in question. By becoming more and better aware of itself, the collectivity is transformed. The consciousness that society gains of its own condition alters it; by the mere fact of knowing itself, it is no longer what it was before (Durkheim, 1969: 579). It is precisely because it is indirectly reflexive that collective ideation is normative. For example, the

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com at UNIV FED DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL on December 3, 2012

444

Journal of Classical Sociology 12(3-4)

totem for the Australian, or the flag for the soldier, expresses in material form the unity of the clan or the nation. But by representing it, it also constitutes it. The emblem is not only a convenient method of clarifying the awareness the society has of itself: It serves to create and is a constitutive element of that awareness (Durkheim, 1995 [1912]: 231). The emblem is not the groups outward expression but the idea through which the group is constituted. In exactly the same way, the role of the modern state is not simply to reflect back to its separate constituents the image of the social whole that they combine to form but to which they have no direct access. If it were merely a pale imitation of this sort, it would lose its independent existence relative to society. The state must be a centre of new and original representations which ought to put society in a position to conduct itself with greater intelligence than when it is swayed merely by vague sentiments working on it (Durkheim, 1957 [1950]: 92). Political representation is not imitative and passive, but speculative and active. It augments unreflective thinking with deliberative thinking that, once conveyed to the various components of society, makes them behave more intelligently. In other words, the aids to the growth of self-consciousness function to transform society. For that reason, the constituent gap of social meaning must be understood in a strong sense: the gap of social meaning is constitutive of society, for through it society makes itself, and remakes itself, periodically. Aids to the growth of self-consciousness are at the same time the drivers of social transformation. Using the states representations, modern societies make themselves, and remake themselves, at regular intervals. Using the findings of sociology, modern societies also make themselves, and remake themselves, at regular but different intervals. Sociologists, then, are not to be confused either with politicians or with agents of the state. The scientific form of the collective ideation is not reducible to its deliberative form, even though both of these add a level of reflective thinking to spontaneous social thinking, and even though both transform society through the addition of reflective thinking.
Consciousness and scientific thinking, which is simply the highest form of consciousness, are not added onto reality without affecting it, as if they were mere epiphenomena; they put us in a position to change reality purely by the fact of illuminating it. (Durkheim, 1969: 572)

Sociology, the highest form of collective ideation, is also the form through which societies make themselves, and remake themselves, at more frequent intervals. The findings of science are the most transformative social ideals imaginable. Sociology is collective ideation at its maximum level of creative activity. The advent and the development of sociology in modern societies are thus not neutral events without practical effect. Sociological knowledge transforms the social phenomena it studies by the very fact of studying them. This is the meaning, the exact opposite of that proposed by the reproductive interpretation, of the practical effectiveness claimed for sociology by Durkheim in Chapter 3 of The Rules of Sociological Method. It may be objected that this reading of The Rules of Sociological Method, focusing on the contribution of sociology to the instituting activity of collective ideation, is not in the end any different from the reproductive interpretation more precisely, that it simply

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com at UNIV FED DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL on December 3, 2012

Plouviez

445

transposes to the social psyche what the reproductive interpretation claims for the social structure. According to the reproductive interpretation, Durkheim reduces sociology to a conformist discipline because the ideal that he identifies in society is not in fact an ideal social structure but simply the actual, real social structure imagined as functioning optimally and in its completely realized form. But does that mean that the ideal Durkheim identifies in the social psyche scientific knowledge is equally nothing more than the actual, real social psyche imagined as functioning optimally and in its completely realized form? If so, that would mean that the contribution of sociology to the instituting activity of collective ideation is also in fact mere conformism. To these objections, Durkheims final work, the Introduction to Ethics, offers a negative response.
Every morality, no matter what it is, has its ideal. Therefore, the morality to which men subscribe at each moment of history has its ideal which is embodied in the institutions, traditions and precepts which generally govern behavior. But above and beyond this ideal, there are always others in the process of being formed. For the moral ideal is not immutable: despite the respect with which it is vested, it is alive, constantly changing and evolving. New ideas and aspirations appear which modify or even revolutionize existing morality. And since [the moralist] is not held back by the established morality, he [sic] claims the right to sweep it completely aside should his principles so demand. He is at liberty to create something original and break new ground. Through him all the many currents, which run through society and over which minds are divided, attain awareness and are given conscious expression. (Durkheim, 1979 [1917]: 81)10

There is no unique ideal, but rather a multiplicity of ideals. More precisely, there is one ideal that, in its unique, instituted form, seeks to maintain itself; but over and above this ideal, there are always multiple ideals with productive and instituting activity. In other words, the reproductive interpretation is misled by the unity and the institutional visibility of the instituted ideal. It does not recognize the essential multiplicity of the ideals. Collective ideation is plural because it is a synthesizing activity. There is no single ideal, but a multiplicity of ideals, precisely because of the synthesizing activity of collective ideation. Society, under the impact of this plural collective ideation, creates and recreates itself, makes itself, and remakes itself, periodically. Social changes modify or even revolutionize existing morality because of the instituting activity of collective ideation. Therefore, the object of sociological knowledge is not the ideal in its unique, instituted form. If it were merely to conform to this ideal, as the reproductive interpretation claims it does, it would not even function to strengthen it. It would be nothing but useless verbiage. Sociology can create something original and break new ground (Durkheim, 1979 [1917]: 81). It has as its object the currents of ideals in all their diversity and their instituting activity. More specifically, by helping these currents to gain a better understanding of themselves, it brings them to conscious expression, and thus puts them in a position to change the instituted ideal. As an aid to the growth of self-consciousness of the currents of ideals, as a driver of transformation, sociology functions to subvert the instituted social ideal. Sociology is collective ideation in its subversive capacity.

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com at UNIV FED DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL on December 3, 2012

446

Journal of Classical Sociology 12(3-4)

This subversive capacity is in reality already present in The Rules of Sociological Method, and specifically in Chapter 3, at the core of Durkheims account of the social normality of crime. Every criminal is an innovator. For example, Socrates was the interpreter of a current of ideals that was just coming into being and was thereby innovative. He gave expression to that current, in opposition to the instituted ideal, which reacted by calling him a criminal. But by giving that current access to a greater consciousness and knowledge of itself, Socrates subverted the instituted ideal and precipitated its transformation, which is what made him an innovator. Every crime expresses underlying currents of ideals and in so doing functions to subvert the instituted ideal. This is why crime, as Durkheim argues in Chapter 3 of The Rules of Sociological Method, is a normal social phenomenon. In this respect, sociologists are distinguished from criminals in two main ways: they give conscious expression to currents of ideals, and when they subvert the instituted ideal they know that the activity of innovation is a normal one. In other words, sociology is the criminal form of collective ideation, but one that is reflective and conscious of its normality. Notes
This article was translated by Linda Gardiner, in collaboration with Anne Warfield Rawls and the author, with the support of Paris I Panthon-Sorbonne University Philosophies contemporaines/ NoSoPhi. 1. On the relation between generality and diffusion, see Durkheim (1982 [1895]: 5059; 1951 [1897]: 133ff.), and Tarde (1993 [1890]). 2. For a more detailed discussion of Durkheims definition of the contract as a social institution, see Plouviez (2009: 6990). 3. Paul Bureau, a Catholic and republican trained as a lawyer but converted to sociology, outlined a rapprochement between the trend typified by Le Play and the Durkheim school in the first half of the twentieth century. While he acknowledged the necessity and legitimacy of sociology, he rejected the normative role that Durkheim assigned to it (Bureau, 1923: 251265). For a more detailed discussion of Bureaus proposed reading of Durkheims sociology, see Plouviez (2005: 89120). 4. Hume discusses this example in Section Two of the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (Hume, 1975 [1748]: 19). 5. Hume discusses this example in Section Four of the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (Hume, 1975 [1748]: 32ff.). 6. This expression is borrowed from Bruno Karsenti (2001). 7. For example, the awareness that society takes of its condition (Durkheim, 1969: 579); society becomes conscious of itself (Durkheim, 1951 [1897]: 312); If society is to be able to become conscious of itself and keep the sense it has of itself at the required intensity, it must assemble and concentrate (Durkheim, 1995 [1912]: 424). 8. This interpretation is supported by the reading of the injunction as proposed by Pierre Bourdieu, Jean-Claude Chamboredon, and Jean-Claude Passeron in Le mtier de sociologue (2005 [1967]: 2749). 9. For a more detailed discussion of Durkheims preconceptions, see Plouviez and Keck (2008: 6264). 10. In this last work, unlike its predecessors, Durkheims reference to the moralist is not meant negatively. For moralist here we may read sociologist.

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com at UNIV FED DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL on December 3, 2012

Plouviez References

447

Boudon R (1986 [1984]) Theories of Social Change: A Critical Appraisal, trans. Whitehouse JC. Berkeley: University of California Press. Bourdieu P, Chamboredon J-C, and Passeron J-C (2005 [1967]) Le mtier de sociologue. Berlin/ New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Bureau P (1923) Introduction la mthode sociologique. Paris: Bloud et Gay. Comte A (1988 [18301842]) Introduction to Positive Philosophy, trans. Ferr F. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Durkheim (1951 [1897]) Suicide: A Study in Sociology, trans. Spaulding JA and Simpson G. New York: Free Press. Durkheim (1953 [1924]) Sociology and Philosophy, trans. Pocock DF. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Durkheim (1957 [1950]) Professional Ethics and Civic Morals, trans. Brookfield C. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Durkheim (1969) Journal sociologique. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Durkheim (1979 [1917]) Introduction to ethics. In: Pickering WSF (ed.) Durkheim: Essays on Morals and Education, trans. Sutcliffe HI. Boston, MA: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 7796. Durkheim (1982 [1895]) The Rules of Sociological Method, trans. Halls WD, ed. Lukes S. New York: Free Press. Durkheim (1993 [1893]) The Division of Labor in Society, trans. Simpson G. New York: Free Press. (New edition forthcoming as The Division of Social Labor, trans. Callegaro F. Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2013.) Durkheim (1995 [1912]) The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, trans. Fields KE. New York: Free Press. Gurvitch G (1995 [1937]) La science des faits moraux et la morale thorique chez mile Durkheim. In: Hamilton P (ed.) mile Durkheim: Critical Assessments, Vol. VIII. London: Routledge, 2039. Hume D (1975 [1748]) An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Selby-Bigge LA. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hume D (2001 [17391740]) A Treatise of Human Nature, eds Norton DF and Norton MF. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Joas H (1994) La thorie de laction chez Durkheim et chez Weber: Le problme de la crativit. In: Hirschhorn M and Cnen-Huther J (eds) Durkheim et Weber: Vers la fin des malentendus? (Actes du symposium DurkheimWeber). Paris: LHarmattan, 5372. Karsenti B (2001) Le dcalage du sens: De la sociologie la phnomnologie. In: Benoist J and Karsenti B (eds) Phnomnologie et sociologie. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 229253. Karsenti B (2006) La socit en personnes. Paris: Economica. Maine HS (1864 [1861]) Ancient Law: Its Connection to the Early History of Society, and Its Relation to Modern Ideas. New York: Scribner. Plouviez M (2005) De la science positive de la morale la morale sociologique: Paul Bureau, lecteur de Durkheim. Les tudes Sociales 141 : 89120. Plouviez M (2009) Le contrat comme institution sociale: La notion de solidarit contractuelle chez mile Durkheim. In: Lewkowicz G and Xifaras M (eds) Repenser le contrat. Paris: Dalloz, 6990. Plouviez M and Keck F (2008) Le vocabulaire de Durkheim. Paris: Ellipses. Spencer H (1966 [1882]) The Principles of Sociology, Vol. II. In: A System of Synthetic Philosophy, Vol. VII. Osnabrck: Otto Zeller. Tarde G (1993 [1890]) Les lois de limitation. Paris: Kim.

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com at UNIV FED DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL on December 3, 2012

448 Author biography

Journal of Classical Sociology 12(3-4)

Mlanie Plouviez is laureate of the agrgation in Philosophy. She received a Ph.D. in philosophy from Paris I Panthon-Sorbonne University and is currently studying for her post-doc at the Michel Villey Institute, Paris II Panthon-Assas University. Her research focuses on philosophy of law and philosophy of social sciences. She is interested, in particular, in exploring the birth of scientific sociology in the nineteenth century. She has published articles about Durkheim and has written, with Frdric Keck, Le vocabulaire de Durkheim (Ellipses, 2008). She is currently writing a book entitled Les normes sociales chez Durkheim to be published at ditions CNRS (2013).

Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com at UNIV FED DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL on December 3, 2012