Emile Durkheim

Emile Durkheim (1858-1916) was born in Epinal in Lorraine,

France. He was a contemporary of Weber (1864-

1920), but probably never met Weber, and lived his adult

life after Karl Marx died. Durkheim came from a Jewish

background, and was a superior student at school and

University. Eventually he was able to attend the elite Ecole Normale Supérieure in

Paris. He taught for a number of years, and then received an appointment to a position

in philosophy at the University of Bordeaux in 1887. There he taught the subject of

moral education and later taught the first course in sociology at a French university. In

1902 he was appointed to a professorship at the Sorbonne, in Paris, where he remained

until he died. Durkheim's most famous works are The Division of Labor in Society

(1893), The Rules of Sociological Method (1895), Suicide (1897) and The Elementary

Forms of Religious Life (1912).

Durkheim is often considered a conservative within the field of sociology, being

concerned primarily with order, consensus, solidarity, social morality, and systems of

religion. His theoretical analysis helped provide a basis for relatively conservative

structural functional models of society. However, Durkheim was involved politically in

the Dreyfus affair, and condemned French racism and anti-Semitism. Durkheim might

more properly be considered a political liberal, in that he advocated individual freedom,

and opposed impediments to the free operation of the division of labour. In

contemporary terms, he might be considered a social democrat, in that he favored

social reforms, while opposing the development of a socialist society.

 In his theoretical model, he advocated the development of “professional

groupings” or “occupational groups” as the means by which the interests of special

groups could be promoted and furthered. For Durkheim, these would promote more

than just their own interests, the general interests of the society as a whole, creating

solidarity in a society that had developed a complex division of labour. In advocating

this, he comes close to some versions of pluralism. Durkheim was not generally

involved in politics, and can be considered a more academic sociologist than either

Weber or Marx.

In terms of the development of the field of sociology, Durkheim is especially

important. He was the first to offer courses in sociology in French universities, at a time

when sociology was not well known or favoured. His writings are important within the

field of sociology, in that several of them are basic works that sociology students today

are expected to read and understand. Much of the manner in which sociology as an

academic discipline is carried on follows Durkheim's suggestions and approach. French

sociology, in particular, follows Durkheim, and some of Durkheim's books are likely to

serve as texts in French sociology. Much American sociology is also heavily influenced

by Durkheim. In recent years, there has again been much attention paid to his writings.

Durkheim’s sociology

a. General approach

Durkheim adopted an evolutionary approach in that he considered society to

have developed from a traditional to modern society through the development and
expansion of the division of labour. He compared society to an organism, with different

parts that functioned to ensure the smooth and orderly operation and evolution of

society. He is sometimes considered a structural functionalist in that he regarded

society as composed of structures that functioned together – in constructing such an

approach, he distinguished structure and function. While he considered society to be

composed of individuals, society is not just the sum of individuals and their behaviours,

actions, and thoughts. Rather, society has a structure and existence of its own, apart

from the individuals in it. Further, society and its structures influence, constrain, and

even coerce individuals in it – through norms, social facts, common sentiments, and

social currents.

b. Durkheim’s definition of sociology

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” (Hadden, p. 87).

C. Division of Labor in Society

In The Division of Labor in Society Durkheim attempts to determine what is the

basis of social solidarity in society and how this has changed over time. This was

Durkheim's first major work, so it does not address all the issues that be considered

important. But in this work, he began his study of how society is sui generis, an entity of

its own. This work presents many of Durkheim’s views and illustrates his methodology.

Durkheim’s argument is that there are two types of social solidarity – how society

holds together and what ties the individual to the society. These two forms mechanical

solidarity, which characterizes earlier or traditional societies, where the division of

labour is relatively limited. The form of social solidarity in modern societies, with a

highly developed division of labour, is called organic solidarity. Durkheim argues that

the division of labour itself which creates organic solidarity, because of mutual needs of

individuals in modern soceity. In both types of societies, individuals for the most part

“interact in accordance with their obligations to others and to society as a whole. In

doing so, each person also receives some recognition of his or her own rights and

contributions within the collectivity. Social morality in this sense is ‘strictly necessary’

for solidarity between people to occur; without morality, “societies cannot exist.’” (Grabb,

p. 79).

Reference
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