58 Facts About Durkheim

Durkheim formally established the academic discipline of sociology and is commonly cited as one of the principal architects of modern social science, along with both Karl Marx and Max Weber.

Much of Durkheim's work was concerned with how societies can maintain their integrity and coherence in modernity, an era in which traditional social and religious ties are much less universal, and in which new social institutions have come into being.

Durkheim was deeply preoccupied with the acceptance of sociology as a legitimate science.

For Durkheim, sociology was the science of institutions, understanding the term in its broader meaning as the "beliefs and modes of behaviour instituted by the collectivity, " with its aim being to discover structural social facts.

Durkheim remained a dominant force in French intellectual life until his death in 1917, presenting numerous lectures and published works on a variety of topics, including the sociology of knowledge, morality, social stratification, religion, law, education, and deviance.

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David Emile Durkheim was born 15 April 1858 in Epinal, Lorraine, France, to Melanie and Moise Durkheim, coming into a long lineage of devout French Jews.

Durkheim led a completely secular life, whereby much of his work was dedicated to demonstrating that religious phenomena stemmed from social rather than divine factors.

Precocious student, Durkheim entered the Ecole Normale Superieure in 1879, at his third attempt.

At the ENS, Durkheim studied under the direction of Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges, a classicist with a social-scientific outlook, and wrote his Latin dissertation on Montesquieu.

Durkheim found humanistic studies uninteresting, turning his attention from psychology and philosophy to ethics and, eventually, sociology.

Durkheim obtained his agregation in philosophy in 1882, though finishing next to last in his graduating class owing to serious illness the year before.

Opportunity for Durkheim to receive a major academic appointment in Paris was inhibited by his approach to society.

Durkheim's articles gained recognition in France, and he received a teaching appointment in the University of Bordeaux in 1887, where he was to teach the university's first social science course.

From this position Durkheim helped reform the French school system, introducing the study of social science in its curriculum.

Durkheim was one of the pioneers of the use of quantitative methods in criminology, which he used in his study of suicide.

Durkheim had aimed for the position earlier, but the Parisian faculty took longer to accept what some called "sociological imperialism" and admit social science to their curriculum.

Durkheim became a full professor there in 1906, and in 1913 he was named chair in "Education and Sociology".

Durkheim had much influence over the new generation of teachers; around that time he served as an advisor to the Ministry of Education.

Durkheim's leftism was always patriotic rather than internationalist, in that he sought a secular, rational form of French life.

Emotionally devastated, Durkheim collapsed of a stroke in Paris on 15 November, two years later in 1917.

Durkheim sought to create one of the first rigorous scientific approaches to social phenomena.

Durkheim agreed with Spencer's organic analogy, comparing society to a living organism.

Durkheim insisted that society was more than the sum of its parts.

The principles Durkheim absorbed from them included rationalism, scientific study of morality, anti-utilitarianism, and secular education.

Durkheim's methodology was influenced by Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges, a supporter of the scientific method.

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The answer remains uncertain; some scholars have argued that Durkheim's thought is a form of secularized Jewish thought, while others argue that proving the existence of a direct influence of Jewish thought on Durkheim's achievements is difficult or impossible.

Lastly, Durkheim was concerned with the practical implications of scientific knowledge.

Durkheim authored some of the most programmatic statements on what sociology is and how it should be practiced.

Durkheim's work revolved around the study of social facts, a term he coined to describe phenomena that have an existence in and of themselves, are not bound to the actions of individuals, but have a coercive influence upon them.

Durkheim argued that social facts have, sui generis, an independent existence greater and more objective than the actions of the individuals that compose society.

Durkheim was one of the first scholars to consider the question of culture so intensely.

Durkheim was interested in cultural diversity, and how the existence of diversity nonetheless fails to destroy a society.

Durkheim saw the population density and growth as key factors in the evolution of the societies and advent of modernity.

Durkheim believed that crime is "bound up with the fundamental conditions of all social life" and serves a social function.

Durkheim thought deviance to be an essential component of a functional society.

Durkheim believed that deviance had three possible effects on society:.

In Suicide, Durkheim explores the differing suicide rates among Protestants and Catholics, arguing that stronger social control among Catholics results in lower suicide rates.

Durkheim believed there was more to suicide than extremely personal individual life circumstances: for example, a loss of a job, divorce, or bankruptcy.

Durkheim believed that suicide was an instance of social deviance.

Durkheim created a normative theory of suicide focusing on the conditions of group life.

Durkheim wanted to understand the empirical, social aspect of religion that is common to all religions and goes beyond the concepts of spirituality and God.

Durkheim argues we are left with the following three concepts:.

Out of those three concepts, Durkheim focused on the sacred, noting that it is at the very core of a religion:.

Durkheim saw religion as the most fundamental social institution of humankind, and one that gave rise to other social forms.

Durkheim saw religion as a force that emerged in the early hunter and gatherer societies, as the emotions collective effervescence run high in the growing groups, forcing them to act in a new ways, and giving them a sense of some hidden force driving them.

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However, Durkheim believed that religion was becoming less important, as it was being gradually superseded by science and the cult of an individual.

Durkheim argued that our primary categories for understanding the world have their origins in religion.

Durkheim argued that categories are produced by the society, and thus are collective creations.

Durkheim saw this religion as the most ancient religion, and focused on it as he believed its simplicity would ease the discussion of the essential elements of religion.

Durkheim worked largely out of a Kantian framework and sought to understand how the concepts and categories of logical thought could arise out of social life.

Durkheim argued, for example, that the categories of space and time were not a priori.

Arguably the most important "" is language, which according to Durkheim is a product of collective action.

Durkheim argues that morality is characterized not just by this obligation, but is something that is desired by the individual.

For Durkheim, it is only society that has the resources, the respect, and the power to cultivate within an individual both the obligatory and the desirous aspects of morality.

Durkheim has had an important impact on the development of anthropology and sociology as disciplines.

Scholars inspired by Durkheim include Marcel Mauss, Maurice Halbwachs, Celestin Bougle, Gustave Belot, Alfred Radcliffe-Brown, Talcott Parsons, Robert K Merton, Jean Piaget, Claude Levi-Strauss, Ferdinand de Saussure, Michel Foucault, Clifford Geertz, Peter Berger, social reformer Patrick Hunout, and others.

Outside of sociology, Durkheim has influenced philosophers, including Henri Bergson and Emmanuel Levinas, and his ideas can be identified, inexplicitly, in the work of certain structuralist theorists of the 1960s, such as Alain Badiou, Louis Althusser, and Michel Foucault.

Much of Durkheim's work remains unacknowledged in philosophy, despite its direct relevance.