Durkheim, ÉMile (1858–1917)

French sociologist

Émile Durkheim was born in the Alsace-Lorraine region of France, where his father was a prominent rabbi. Following his university education in Épinal and Paris, Durkheim spent his early career from 1887 to 1902 teaching philosophy in Bordeaux. In 1902 he was appointed professor of the science of education at the Sorbonne in Paris, and in 1913 he became a professor of education and sociology there.

Durkheim is considered one of the founders of modern sociology. Influenced by the social theories of Henri de Saint-Simon (1750–1825) and Auguste Comte (1798–1857), Durkheim proposed that methods of the natural sciences—hypotheses, statistics, impartial [Page 419]observation—be applied to the study of human society. He theorized that social relations were based on collective moral beliefs and symbolic representations, and he explored the changing relationship of the individual to the social group in modern society.

In addition to numerous essays, Durkheim published four major books in his lifetime. The Division of Labor in Society (1893) examined the historical development of social solidarity. In it, Durkheim proposed that occupational groups, such as professional associations and workers' unions, might serve as the means of moral integration in modern society. By affording a sense of belonging and fostering shared principles, such groups would instill a common ethic of obligation to the greater community. The Rules of Sociological Method (1895) outlined techniques for defining and delimiting social phenomena for purposes of scientific study. Suicide: A Study in Sociology (1897) explored the causes and consequences of weakened bonds between the individual and society. In The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912), Durkheim investigated the spiritual practices of native Australians in an effort to show how collective beliefs and rituals shaped and stabilized social order.

Although the late nineteenth-century positivism and evolutionary thought that shaped Durkheim's thinking no longer hold sway in sociology, a number of his concepts have had an enduring impact on the study of community life. In theorizing the historical development of society, Durkheim identified two contrasting, ideal typical categories of social solidarity. Mechanical solidarity was characteristic of what Durkheim termed simple or primitive societies, where there was a great homogeneity of moral beliefs with little social or economic differentiation. Organic solidarity, characteristic of complex or advanced societies, was the product of multivalent forms of social relationships and correspondingly diverse and protean moral standards. Durkheim held that the evolution from mechanical to organic solidarity was not complete. While the nature of mechanical solidarity, being largely a historical phenomena, could be fully described, the moral foundations and social bonds shaping organic solidarity in the modern world were still evolving. The decline of one moral universe before a subsequent constellation of beliefs and bonds was fully formed produced distinctively modern social pathologies, such as anomie, the loss of moral certainty, and the decline of collective life. Other ailments of modern life that Durkheim identified included egoism, the alienation of the individual from the social collective, which he distinguished from individualism, a potentially positive force for strengthening personal freedom and dignity and a promising foundation for the emerging collective moral order of modern society.

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