Emile Durkheim . French sociologist and philosopher; positivist, follower of Auguste Comte , professor at the Sorbonne . [1] He was the founder of the French School of Sociology . It is one of the few classics of Sociology and Human Sciences that have not ceased to be copiously cited and criticized. He is considered one of the founding fathers of said science along with Karl Marx and Max Weber . His multipurpose spirit is interested in the innumerable facets of the complexity of the groups, institutions and societies that operate throughout history .
Summary
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- 1 Biographical synthesis
- 1 Career path
- 2 Death
- 2 Durkheim’s Sociological Theory
- 1 The study of social facts
- 2 Division of social work
- 3 Anomie
- 4 Functionalism
- 3 Main works
- 1 Posthumous work
- 4 References
- 5 Sources
Biographical synthesis
He was born in Lorraine , France in 1858 , being the son and grandson of rabbis for eight generations. He knew a dynamic and moved childhood, marked by events such as secularization and abandonment of his dedication to the rabbinate; the period of great economic and industrial expansion; the loss of the Franco-German War and the occupation of his hometown in 1870 .
Career path
He moved to Paris to prepare his admission to the Ecole Normale Supérieure where he graduated in Philosophy in 1876 – 1882 . He was appointed high school teacher and then went on to teach Pedagogy and Social Sciences at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Bordeaux since 1887 .
In 1893 he published his doctoral thesis, The Division of Social Labor , and two years later The Rules of the Sociological Method . During 1896 , his courses on Sociology became the first chair of this discipline in France. The following year ( 1897 ) he published Suicide .
From the field of philosophy teaching Émile Durkheim acceded to the study of the social, contributing notably to the consolidation of sociology as an independent discipline, following the positivist line initiated by Auguste Comte .
For Durkheim the illustration was a negative influence, although it had positive effects on his work (for example, interest in science and social reformism). However, Durkheim is more properly considered an heir to the conservative tradition, especially as it manifests itself in Comte’s work. But while Comte kept aloof from academic circles, Durkheim legitimized sociology in France and his work became a dominant force in the development of sociology in general, and sociological theory in particular.
Durkheim was politically liberal but politically he adopted a more conservative stance. Like Comte and the Catholic counterrevolutionaries, Durkheim feared and hated social disorder. The fundamental motive of his work were the disorders that produced general social changes, as well as many others (such as labor conflicts, the overthrow of the ruling class, discord between church and state and the birth of political anti-Semitism) more specific from Durkheim’s France . In fact, a large part of his work is dedicated to the study of social order. His view was that social disorders were not a necessary part of the modern world and could be solved through the introduction of social reforms.
Whereas Karl Marx thought that the problems of the modern world were inherent to society, Durkheim (along with most of the classical theorists) disagreed with it. Thus Marx’s ideas about the necessity of social revolution were radically opposed to those of Durkheim’s and others’ reformism . As classical sociological theory developed, the Durkheimian interest in order and reform predominated, while the Martian position was eclipsed.
Émile Durkheim, unlike the many other great thinkers in sociology, shows very little ambiguity. His main concern was the influence of the great structures of society, and of society itself, on the thoughts and actions of individuals. He contributed greatly to the formation of functional structural theory, which focuses on the analysis of social structure and culture.
Death
Deeply disappointed and inconsolable over the tragic disappearance of his son at the front during the war, he died at Fontainebleau on November 15 , 1917 .
Durkheim’s Sociological Theory
The study of social facts
In order to move sociology away from philosophy and to give it a clear and particular identity, Durkheim asserted that the distinctive object of sociology should be the study of social facts. The concept of social fact had several components, but the idea that social facts should be treated as things was of crucial importance in distinguishing sociology from philosophy. As things, social facts had to be studied empirically, not philosophically.
To distinguish sociology from psychology, Durkheim asserted that social facts were external and coercive to the actor. We know that a social fact is one thing and that it is external and coercive, but what else do we know about a social fact? In reality, Durkheim distinguished between two main types of social facts: the material and the immaterial. Material social facts are the clearest of both types, because they are real and material entities, but they only take on minor importance in Durkheim’s work.
The bulk of Durkheim’s work, and the core of his sociology, is the study of immaterial social facts. What norms and values are for sociologists today, or more generally culture, are suitable examples of what Durkheim meant by immaterial social facts.
The material social facts are clearly external and coercive, the immaterial social facts are not so defined. At least to some extent they reside in the mind of the actor. The best way to conceptualize immaterial social facts is to think of them as external and coercive with respect to psychological facts.
Social facts play a central role in Durkheim’s sociology. A useful way to extract the most important social facts from his work, and to analyze his thoughts on the relationships between these phenomena, is to begin with Durkheim’s efforts to organize them at different levels of social reality. Durkheim began at the level of material social facts, not because it was the most important level for him, but because its elements usually have causal priority in his theorizing, since they influence immaterial social facts, the real concern of his work.
Division of social work
Durkheim based his analysis on the Division of Social Work on his conception of 2 ideal types of society. The most primitive type, characterized by mechanical solidarity, presents an undifferentiated social structure, with little or no division of labor. The more modern type, characterized by organic solidarity, presents a greater and more refined division of labor.
For the author, the division of labor in society is a material social fact that indicates the degree to which tasks or responsibilities have been specialized. People in primitive societies tend to occupy very general positions in which they perform a wide variety of tasks and maintain a large number of responsibilities.
Changes in the division of labor have had enormous implications for the structure of society, and some of the most important are reflected in the differences between 2 types of solidarity: mechanical and organic. His interest in approaching the question of solidarity was to discover what held society together. A society characterized by mechanical solidarity remains unified because all of its members have similar skills and knowledge. The union of people is due to the fact that everyone is involved in carrying out similar activities and has similar responsibilities. On the contrary, a society characterized by organic solidarity is held together due to differences between people, due to the fact that they have different tasks and responsibilities.
The last difference between organic and mechanical solidarity. Since the people in societies characterized by mechanical solidarity tend to be alike in the tasks they perform, they are more likely to compete with each other. On the contrary, in societies characterized by organic solidarity, differentiation facilitates cooperation between people and allows them to rely on the same resource base.
Another material social fact closely related to the division of labor was the most important causal factor in Durkheimian theory of the transition from mechanical to organic solidarity: dynamic density. This concept refers to the number of people in a society and the degree of interaction that occurs between them. An increase in the number of people plus an increase in their interaction leads to the transition from mechanical to organic solidarity, since, if they occur simultaneously, they lead to increased competition for scarce resources and a more intense struggle for freedom. survival among the various parallel and similar components of primitive society.
The anomie
The first formulation of a category that is firmly installed in Durkheim’s thought appears: anomie (or anomy). When he begins to analyze the functioning of complex (or modern) societies, he comes across this classification, understanding anomie as a lack of social solidarity, given that relations with the organs are not regulated given the imbalance caused by permanent modernization. Durkheim in particular finds in the social contract a factor of anomie, since it does not guarantee order.
In it, he considered anomie as a social situation in which the rules cease to govern, individuals cease to behave in accordance with them, in any case, as a social anomaly associated with an anomic division of labor.
In Suicide , Durkheim applied the concept of anomie, at the social level, to the explanation of a phenomenon as individual as suicide, a phenomenon in which he distinguished 4 types.
Functionalism
Durkheim’s thought has notably influenced various fields of human knowledge. His functionalist theory derived from Positivism focuses his attention on the functioning, regularities and norms of society. It alludes, in general terms, to the use of the function, considered this as the external manifestation of an object, in a certain system of relationships.
The term function refers us to the idea of the particular activity carried out by each object, whatever its condition and class, for this theory, the function is a concept that, in addition to expressing the existing relationships between the elements of a set, manifests the nature of the dependence of these elements.
The functionalism is a sociological theory that seeks to explain social phenomena by function exercised by the institutions in society. If a particular social change promotes a harmonious balance, it is considered functional; if it breaks the balance, it is dysfunctional; and if it has no effect, it is non-functional.
Durkheim’s (main representative of functionalism) most important course was on moral education. His purpose was to communicate to educators the moral system that he hoped they would transmit to young people, in order to stop the moral degeneration he perceived in French society.
Main works
- The Division of Social Work( 1893 )
- The Rules of the Sociological Method( 1895 )
- The Suicide( 1897 )
- The Elemental Forms of Religious Life( 1912 )
Posthumous work
- Education and Sociology( 1922 )
- Sociology and Philosophy( 1924 )
- Moral Education( 1925 )
- Socialism( 1928 )
