Noman Rasheed

BB191011 (II-B)

Sociology

Emile Durkheim
1) Personal Life/History

Emile Durkheim is the philosopher who can best help us to understand why Capitalism

makes us richer and yet frequently more miserable; even – far too often – suicidal.
 
David Émile Durkheim was born in April 1858 in Épinal, located in the Lorraine region of
France. His family was devoutly Jewish, and his father, grandfather, and great grandfather
were all rabbis. Durkheim, however, broke with tradition and went to the École normale
supérieure in 1879, where he studied philosophy. He graduated in 1882 and began
teaching the subject in France. In 1887 he was appointed to teach Social Sciences and
Pedagogy at the University of Bordeaux, allowing him to teach the first ever official
sociology courses in France. Also in 1887, Durkheim married Louise Dreyfus, with whom he
would eventually have two children. During his time at Bordeaux, Durkheim had great
success, publishing his doctoral thesis On the Division of Social Labor (1893, Division), The
Rules of Sociological Method (1895, Rules), and Suicide: A Study in Sociology (1897, Suicide).
Also, in 1896 he established the prestigious Année sociologique, further cementing
sociology’s place in the academic world.

In 1902, Durkheim was finally given a promotion in the form of the chair of the Science of
Education at the Sorbonne. In 1906 he became a full professor and in 1913, his position
was changed to formally include sociology. Henceforth he was chair of the Science of
Education and Sociology. Here he gave lectures on a number of subjects and published a
number of important essays as well as his final, and most important, major work The
Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912, Forms). The outbreak of World War I would prove
to have disastrous consequences for Durkheim. The war took many of his most promising
pupils and in 1915 his son, André, also died in combat. From this Durkheim would never
recover and in November 1917 he died of a stroke, leaving his last great work, La Morale
(Morality), with only a preliminary introduction.
During his lifetime, Durkheim was politically engaged, yet kept these engagements rather
discrete. He defended Alfred Dreyfus during the Dreyfus affair and was a founding
member of the Human Rights League. Durkheim was familiar with Karl Marx’s ideas. Yet,
Durkheim was very critical of Marx’s work, which he saw as unscientific and dogmatic, as
well as of Marxism, which he saw as needlessly conflictual, reactionary, and violent.
Nevertheless, he supported a number of socialist reforms, and had a number of important
socialist friends, but never committed himself to the party and did not make political issues
a primary concern. Despite his muted political engagement, Durkheim was an ardent
patriot of France. He hoped to use his sociology as a way to help a French society suffering
under the strains of modernity, and during World War I he took up a position writing anti-
German propaganda pamphlets, which in part use his sociological theories to help explain
the fervent nationalism found in Germany.

2) Professional Contribution:

One of Durkheim’s major contributions was to help define and establish the field of
sociology as an academic discipline. Durkheim distinguished sociology from philosophy,
psychology, economics, and other social science disciplines by arguing that society was an
entity of its own. He argued that sociologists should study particular features of collective
or group life and sociology is the study of social facts, things which are external to, and
coercive of, individuals. These social facts are features of the group, and cannot be studied
apart from the collective, nor can they be derived from the study of individuals. Some
examples are religion, urban structures, legal systems, and moral values such as family
values. Durkheim argued that these are “features of collective existence, which are not
reducible to features of the atoms, individuals, which make it up”.

In order to examine the contribution of Emile Durkheim to the scientific study of society
critically, one should consider Durkheim’s groundbreaking works including: The Division of
Labour (1893), Rules of Sociological Method (1895), and Suicide (1897), all of which reflect a
popular topic about individualism and a new social regulation in modern industrial society
(Barnes, 1920). These works describe Durkheim’s notion of social facts which run through
as a principle concept in his sociology. It will discuss its characteristics as well as
importance, and then introduce Durkheim’s methodological approach to study social facts,
his contribution to the social sciences through the use of examples which include his study
of The Division of Labour and Suicide. The overall contribution of Durkheim remains one of
the peaks in modern sociology.

Social facts are external from individuals. Durkheim rejects Comte’s opinion to unify social
science with other scientific disciplines and try to treat it independently. He argues that
social facts are different from those assumptions in people’s mind and regular acting such
as drinking or sleeping in everyday life. As a result, one could distinguish a kind of conduct
and thought out of biology and psychology and classifies it into the particular category of
sociology.

Social facts have external coercions on individuals. It limits the choices of individuals and if
individuals try to go against them, they may likely to get resistance by certain external
constraint power such as public laws. Additionally, those coercive powers are not only
administered by social organization but also potential moral awareness which called ‘social
currents’ (Harrington, 2005).

In his book ‘The rules of Sociological Method’, Durkheim highlights the importance of study
social facts as well as the methods to study them. He accepts Comte’s idea that every social
phenomenon should be studied as a thing within the context of society.

In another significant book ‘Suicide’ Durkheim explained a popular moral phenomenon in

the 19th society. Suicide can be defined as ‘every case of death which results directly or
indirectly from a positive or negative act, accomplished by the victim himself which he
knows must produce this result’ (Lukes, 1973).

3) Main theories

Main theories of Emile Durkheim are functionalism, anomie, division of labor. This
perspective of society differed from other sociologists of his era as Durkheim's theories
were founded on things external in nature, as opposed to those internal in nature, such as
the motivations and desires of individuals. According to Durkheim, collective
consciousness, values, and rules are critical to a functional society. In this lesson, we will
focus on Durkheim's theories of functionalism, anomie, and division of labor.

A. Functionalism

Functionalism emphasizes a societal equilibrium. If something happens to disrupt the

order and the flow of the system, society must adjust to achieve a stable state. According to
Durkheim, society should be analyzed and described in terms of functions. Society is a
system of interrelated parts where no one part can function without the other. These parts
make up the whole of society. If one part changes, it has an impact on society as a whole.

For example, the state provides public education for children. The family of the children
pays taxes, which the state uses for public education. The children who learn from public
education go on to become law-abiding and working citizens, who pay taxes to support the
state.

Let's look at this example again. The state provides public education for children. But a
disruption or disequilibrium in the system occurs - perhaps the education is subpar, and
the children drop out and become criminals. The system adjusts to improve the education
and attempts to rehabilitate (through jail or other means) the criminals for them to become
law-abiding and taxpaying citizens.

Durkheim actually viewed crime and delinquent behavior as a normal and necessary
occurrence in the social system. He proposed that crime led to reactions from society
about the crime. These shared reactions were used to create common consensuses of
what individuals felt were moral and ethical norms by which to abide. These commonly
held norms and values led to boundaries and rules for the society.

B. Division of Labor

Durkheim's concept of the division of labor focused on the shift in societies from a simple
society to one that is more complex. He argued that traditional societies were made up of
homogenous people that were more or less the same in terms of values, religious beliefs,
and backgrounds. Modern societies, in contrast, are made up of a complex division of
labor, beliefs, and backgrounds.

In traditional societies, the collective consciousness ruled, social norms were strong, and
social behavior was well regulated. In modern societies, common consciousness was less
obvious, and the regulation of social behavior was less punitive and more restitutive,
aiming to restore normal activity to society.

In essence, Durkheim's work was all about culture, and as such, it remains deeply relevant
and important to how sociologists study culture today. We draw on his contributions to
help make sense of what holds us together, and also, quite importantly, to help us
understand the things that divide us, and how we deal (or don't deal) with those divisions.

C. Suicide

According to Durkheim, suicide is not an individual act nor a personal action. It is caused by
some power which is over and above the individual or super individual.

Types of Suicide

Emile Durkheim classified different types of suicides on the basis of different types of
relationship between the actor and his society.

i. Egoistic suicide:

According to Durkheim, when a man becomes socially isolated or feels that he has no place
in the society he destroys himself. This is the suicide of self-centered person who lacks
altruistic feelings and is usually cut off from main stream of the society.
 ii. Altruistic suicide:

This type of suicide occurs when individuals and the group are too close and intimate. This
kind of suicide results from the over integration of the individual into social proof, for
example – Sati customs, Dannies warriors.

iii. Anomic suicide:

This type of suicide is due to certain breakdown of social equilibrium, such as, suicide after
bankruptcy or after winning a lottery. In other words, anomic suicide takes place in a
situation which has cropped up suddenly.

iv. Fatalistic suicide:

This type of suicide is due to overregulation in society. Under the overregulation of a

society, when a servant or slave commits suicide, when a barren woman commits suicide, it
is the example of fatalistic suicide

4) Conclusion

Durkheim focused a good deal of intention to the importance of moral order in society.
That society needed to have a set rule of what is expected of an individual if that person is
to feel integrated into society and fully understand their purpose and function. For me, one
of Durkheim’s most enduring contribution is the idea of the importance of th collective
consciousness, that is the sense of “we-ness” or the social cement that binds us together as
a member of a society. It is what makes us pull together in times of strife. We may disagree
on many things but ultimately we all agree that even with its faults our culture is where we
would rather be so if there is a problem or controversy we ultimately come together to find
a solution that will make sure stronger.