Durkheim's Work

Reading on "Durkheim’s Work"

The comparing with Marx and Weber:

Comparing to Marx, and Weber, Durkheim’s work was the least directly involved on a personal level in the great political events of this time, his works are wholly academic in character, more concentred and his theoretical outlooks are more homogeneous and easy to specify than those moulding he work of the other two.

Influences on Durkheim’s
Intellectual position come from French intellectual traditions, with overlapping interpretations which Saint Simon and Comet offered of the decline of feudalism and the emergence of the modern form of society constitute the principal foundation fro the whole of Durkheim’s writing. The main theme of Durkheim’s work is o reconciliation of Comet’s conception of the positive stage of society with Saint-Simon’s partly variant exposition of the characteristics of industrialism.

The notion that society forms an integrated unity which is in some sense comparable to that of a loving organism is one which can be traced back to classical social philosophy. The publication of Darwin’s theory of biological evolution gave an entirely new stimulus to the elaboration of organicist theories.

1885 – 1887, Durkheim’s critical discussion of the work of Schaffle, and lilienfeld and other German social thinkers.


1. One of Schaffles’s the most important contributions, according to Durkheim, is to have outlined a useful morphological analysis of the principal structural components of different forms of society. But Schaffle does not attempt in a direct sense to deduce the properties of social organisation from those of organic life, he insists that the use of biological concepts represents nothing more than a metaphor which can facilitate sociological analysis. Schaffle pointes out that there exists a radical and highly significant discrepancy between life of the animal organism and that of life. Whereas the life of the animal organism is governed mechanically, society is bound together not by a material relation, but by the ties of ideas. The notion of “society as the ideal” is the Schaffle’s main thought. “Society is not simply an aggregate of individuals, but is a being which has existed prior to them more than they influence it, and which has its won life, consciousness, its own interests and destiny.” Schaffle rejects the Rousseau’s hypothetical ‘isolated individual, on the contrary, everything that makes human life higher than the level of animal existence is derived from the accumulated cultural and technological wealth of society. Durkheim continues this line of thought, and treats “collective consciousness” as a composite, the elements of which are individual minds.

2. Differing from the orthodox economic standpoints, which is built upon individualist utilitarianism, that says the main laws of economics would be exactly the same even if neither nations nor states had existed in the word, they suppose only the presence of individuals who exchanges their products, two German economists, Wagner and Schmoller argues that society is a unity having its own specific characteristics which cannot be inferred from those of its individuals members, the organisations of relationships has properties of its own. Therefore, Schmoller shows that economic phenomena cannot be adequately studied in the manner of classical economic theory, as if these were separate from the moral norms and beliefs which govern the life of individuals in society.

3. Durkheim in his “the division of labour” clearly stated that there is no society where economic relationships are not subject to customary and legal regulation, that is to say, a contract is not sufficient unto itself. If it were not for the existence of social norms which provide the framework within which contracts are made, then ‘incoherent chaos’ would reign in the economic world. The regulations which control economic life cannot be explained purely in economic term.

Contrary to the traditional deductive system approach, German scholars have shown the moral rules and actions can and must be studies scientifically, as properties of social organisations. Durkheim affirms that the study of social life must begin with reality, which means the study of concrete forms of moral rules comprised within definite societies. Moral rules are shaped by society, under the pressure of collective needs.

The Rule of Religion

Wundt’s Ethik, Durkheim points out that Wundt’s primary contribution is to have shown the basic significance of religious institutions in society. Durkheim accepts his position of that “religious is a force making for social unity.” Religious is the set of metaphysical speculations on the nature and order of thins, and rules of conduct and moral discipline on the other.

In primitive societies, religion is a strong source of altruism: religious beliefs and practices have the effect of restraining egoism, of inclining man towards sacrifice and disinerestedness. Religious sentiments attach man to something other than himself, and make him dependent upon superior powers which symbolise the ideal. Individualism is the product of society development.

Durkheim points out that the dual character of the regulative effect of religious and other moral rules. The positive attraction to an ideal or set of ideals; constraint, or obligation, the pursuit of moral ends is not always inevitably founded upon the positive valence of ideal.

The Division of Labour

Without accepting the allegation of “wholesale ideas from German”, Durkheim presents the following views

• The importance of ideals and moral unity in the continuity of society


• The significance of the individual as an active agent as well as a passive recipient of social influence.


• The dual nature of the attachment of the individual to society, as involving both obligation and positive commitment to ideals


• The concept of an organisation of units, theory of anomie.

Those are rudiments of his later theory of religion.

The main proposition developed in The division of labour is that modern society is not, in spite of the declining significance of traditional moral beliefs, inevitably tending towards disintegration. It is a normal state of the differentiated division of labour in organic stability.

The main substantive problem of his concern in The division of labour is the relationship between individual and society. On the one hand, the development of modern society is associated with the expansion of individualism; on the other hand, there are other contradictory moral trends “universally developed individual” which are also strong. To understand of source of these apparently contradictory moral ideals, Durkheim suggests that one has to analysis the causes and effects of the expansion of the division of labour.

The cause of expansion of division of labour:

Division of labour is not a new phenomenon, nor does it happen only in economic sphere, but also in all sectors of contemporary societies, and all other areas of social life. The increase of social differentiation which is characteristic of the process of development from tradition to modern forms of society can b compared to certain biological principles. The more specialised the functions of the organism, the higher its level on the evolutionary scale. Durkheim applies this into the development of the division of labour and its relationship to the moral order.

While social solidarity is not easy to measure by internal fact, we can use external index to symbolise it. The legal code is an index can be used. When a stable form of social life exists, moral rules eventually come to be codified in the shape of law. The function of law is to define as a rule of conduct which is sanctioned, and there are two types of “sanction” :- 1) repressive sanction, which is in penal law, consist in the imposition of some kind of suffering upon the individual as a punishment for his transgression.; 2) restitutive sanction, involves restoration, the re-establishment of relationships as the were before the law was violated.

Penal law is to say there is punishment, while civil law is to say there is duty.

The predominance of penal law within the juridical system of a given society necessarily presupposes the existence of a strong defined conscious collective, of beliefs and sentiments shared in common by the members of the society.
Punishment consists above all in an emotive response to a transgression, not only confined to the guilty, but also to those who are closely connected to the guilty party. The primary function of punishment is to protect and reaffirm the conscience collective in the face of acts which question its sanctity. In the most primitive forms of society all law is repressive.
Society which is based on mechanical solidarity have an aggregate or segmental structure, they consist of social groups are very similar to each other in their internal organisation. The society is dominated by the existence of a strongly formed set of sentiments and beliefs shared by all members of the community; there is little scope of differentiation between individuals.

The progressive displacement of repressive by the restitutive law is an historical trend which is correlated with the degree of development of society. The higher level of social development, the greater the relative proportion of restitutive laws within the juridical structure. The very existence of restitutive law presupposes the prevalence of a differentiated division of labour, since it covers the rights of individuals, either over private property, or over other individuals who are in a different social position from themselves.

The second type of social cohesion is ‘organic solidarity’. Here solidarity stems from the functional interdependence in the division of labour, unlike mechanical solidarity, where the collective consciousness is the basis of societal cohesion, presupposes not identity but difference between individuals in their beliefs and actions. The growth of organic solidarity and the expansion of the division of labour are hence associated with increasing individualism.

Melancholy suicide increasing shows that in contemporary societies that societal differentiation does not inevitably produce an increase in the general level of happiness. We do know however that the development of the division of labour goes hand in hand with disintegration of the segmental type of social structure. For this happen, the new relationship is formed to bring separate groups into contact, this differing modes of life and belief of such societies, breaks down the once isolated homogeneity of each group, stimulates economic and cultural exchanges. Division of labour thus increases as there are more individuals sufficiently in contact to be able to act and react upon one to another. Durkheim calls the frequency of such contact moral or dynamic density.

Individualism and anomie

The growth of division of labour is not inevitably associated with increasing of individualism that is with disruption in social cohesion, what explains the conflicts in modern society? Though facing difficult, Durkheim offered explanation as such: “that division of economic functions has temporarily outstripped the development of appropriate moral regulation.” The modern state is an anomic state. Durkheim suggested “the forced division of labour provides the functioning of organic solidarity”. The conflicts can be obviated only if the division of labour is coordinated with the distribution of talents and capacities, and if the higher occupational positions are not monopolised by a privileged class.

Durkheim's sociology of moral fact

(I was quite lost at lecture of Durkheim 3, talking about religion origin and function etc. I found it hard to follow the argument,I don't see how Totems can be the origin of all religion?)


reading of Francois-Adnre Isambert

Durkheim's interest in morality makes him not only a sociologist of morality but a moralist as well. He tried his best to make morality a positive science.

1. Morality as obligation

According Wandt, whom Durkheim was closely affinity with, moral ends are conceived as obligatory. Moral facts derive their authority from entirely intelligible psychological source:

• the constraint, either external, for fear of punishment, or internal, interiorization of public opinion;


• motives of liberty, the satisfactions of doing good


• motives, only accessible to elite soul, by contemplation of moral ideal

Moral facts therefore, include 1)constraint, external or internal; 2) motives; 3) moral ideal.

Wandt's morality is of norms in which the justification of moral act, at the same time what causally determine its execution.

Durkheim: obligatory force as an order handed down to us by the divinity, it is in the name of God or as consists of a social discipline, in the name of society. He casted doubt upon the effectiveness of motives linking it to its ends, but he accepted Wandt's account of the motives of constraints in obligation, but concluded that the acceptance of moral ideal is a matter of faith.

Durkheim thinks that moral facts consist of rules of conduct, by virtue of their regularity, social habits, latter can change to rules. (most of social habits lack of the imperative character of rules)

Kant's hypothetical imperatives- rules which prescribe the means require to obtain a result, violation of the rules simply brings the whole enterprise to grief.

Durkheim wishes to provide an observable criterion, every moral offence provokes an intervention by society to prevent the deviation.

Therefore, Durkheim, "moral fact" consists of a rule of conduct to which sanction apply. The consequence of moral error can sometimes be predicated. The social reaction follows the offence with true necessity, however, this necessity is not that of an efficient cause operating in the world of pragmatic consequences of courses of action. "The withdrawal of the sanction is only possible when the rule itself disappears, it only occurs when one society changes to another."

2. Morality and law

Durkheim points out that "very often law cannot be separated from the morals (substratum), nor can morals be separated from the law which implements and determines them." Mutually determining relations force the sociologist to consider both together.

Legal sanctions are material, while moral sanctions are reprobative, but, moral sanction is administrated by each and everyone of society (diffuse), the legal sanction is by specialized established bodies.(organized)

Since the legal sanctions are easier to observe than moral sanction, it will be possible to use variation in law to infer the associated changes in morality. Durkheim's observation of "decline in repressive law to deduce a weakening of the morality" and "expansion of cooperative law stipulating the various different obligations of individuals and groups in division of labour"

3. The diversity of moral facts

Dual diversity:

1) Objects of moral facts- accommodate a conception of moral fact, according to which any moral rule proclaimed in a given society.
2) The moral rules governing a given society.

Durkheim thinks the moral regulation is sometime normal, sometimes abnormal.

The normal type is the average type within a given stage of the development of the organism under consideration of (any given society). He however is skeptically that "normal type will achieve the ultimate degree of perfection"

There are two side of morality: obligation and desirability

Notion of duty-> notion of moral -> notion of sacred

"The sacred being is the forbidden being, which one dare not violate, it is also good, loved and sought after". Therefore, Durkheim's two morality, one being a morality of obligation (out of duty) and the other desire (out of good),
It is impossible for people to act out of pure obligation means that moral goodness must be desirable. But there is an irreconcilable antagonism between duty and desire.

Moral facts "substratum" have two bases:
spirit of discipline - obedience to authority
attachment of groups - attractive power and collective ideal

Spirit of discipline, is respect for the rules and the authority. Individuals may exercise self-discipline, but it is the interiorization of force which makes them obey. This interiorizaiton is the chief aim of education.

Moral consensus has been maintained, secular morality enables members of society to remain in agreement. Social being, namely society, possesses all the characteristics of the individual, but dominates the individual.

Durkheim- "suicide"

“Suicide” Reading

Sociologist should define the social phenomenon he wishes to study as the object of his research groups of clearly circumscribed facts, using the methodology based on the fundamental principle that social facts must be studied as things, as realities external to the individuals.

Definition of Suicide:

Every case of death which results directly or indirectly from a positive or negative act, carried out y the victim himself, knowing that it will produce this result.

Durkheim’s approach is to study the social fact of suicide in relation to suicide rate and characteristic of the society. The suicide rate constitutes an order of facts which is unified and definite, is shown by its permanence and variability.

Social causes and social types

In determining the social types of suicide, Durkheim used aetiological classification rather morphological classification, by classifying the causes which produce them, first study the social conditions which are responsible o them, then group these conditions according to their similarities and difference.

Different cause he studied:

Apparently different social factors: such as
Religious denomination
Family and political society

All of them spell out the difference on social solidarity.

For example:

Knowledge vs Suicide:

In general, there is increasing of suicide rate with increasing of knowledge. Knowledge does not determine this increase. With the increased of knowledge, the religious society of which he forms part has lost its cohesion.

Types of Suicide

1. Egoistic suicide

Suicide varies inversely with the degree of integration of the social groups to which the individual belongs. Individual simultaneously detaches himself from society, i.e. his personality begins to predominate over the collective personality. Durkheim calls this state “egoism”, where the individual ego asserts itself to excess in the face of the social ego, this type of suicide that results from excessive individualism “egoistic”

2. Altruistic suicide

Opposing to egoistic, one is too integrated to society. Insufficient individualism has the same effect.

• Obligatory altruistic suicide, because it is his duty, if fails in this obligation, he is punished by being dishonoured and by religious sanction
• Option altruistic suicide, willingness of the Japanese, social prestige attached to suicide as an encouragement and reward
• Acute altruistic suicide, without specific reason, purely for the joy of killing himself.

One thing in common, that is they love something else more than themselves.

3. Anomic suicide

(presuming that insatiable human need requires regulating from society, external power, such as religion, family, government control etc)

Anomie is a state in which there is weak social regulation between the society’s norms and the individual, most often brought on by dramatic changes in economic and or social circumstances. Such as in modern society, when society is less integrated, where religious has lost most of its power to regulate individual moral action and behaviour and the government, rather regulating economic life, has become its instrument and servant. Anomie suicide happens.

Comparing with egoistic suicide, both come from society’s insufficient presence in individuals, in egoistic society is deficient in truly collective activity, thus leaving it deprived of objects and meaning, in anomic suicide, society has a weak presence in the really individual passions, leaving them without a restraining influence.

4. Fatalistic suicide: when social regulation is too strong, one feels hopeless and extremely oppressed, it will happen.

Emile Durkheim- Lecture 1

This is very useful site about Durkheim, besides my favorite Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89mile_Durkheim

http://www.bolender.com/Sociological%20Theory/Durkheim,%20Emile/durkheim,_emile.htm

Sociology as Science

Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)

He was the first to suggest sociology as a discipline like nature science.
Max Weber- interpretation of meaning of social action, while Durkheim taking Structure approach.

Personal and career background
Grown up in a Jewish family, where Jewish law strictly observed. The Jewish religion background may have influenced him in two ways:
- He interested in social solidarity may be attributed to his Jewish training and family atmosphere and his identification to a familial, tribal collective group
- His view on religion, especially emphasis on religious ritual.

To Durkheim, science as vocation, Mauss “ by vocation and in an environment animated by political and moral will to devote his life to the study of social question.”

August Comte and Herbert Spence’s influence on “sociology as science”
Both adapted evolutionary framework in their theories of human social development.

Comet’s two fold division of sociology

1. Social statics: at each moment in history, individual and groups are joined to one another in particular way- social cohesion (noted: Durkheim’s approach is systemic social solidarity)
2. Social dynamics: social evolution, social change from one form of solidarity to another, Durkheim, however against linear concept of social evolution, he suggests past events are not necessarily fully determining today’s society. “social change is not fully determined by the past” (Elem 120). Karl Marx is for linear social
evolution.

Herbert Spence (1820-1903)

He thinks that social evolution as part of general natural evolution, which is increasing differentiation and specialization; thus, socially, increased division of labour and development of harmonious mutual dependence through free exchange of individuals.

Spence’s individualism sociology: a powerful ideological force at that time, like Marx, Durkheim against liberal economics of that time which were more ideological than scientific. Durkheim thinks the explanation of social events should not search the individual motives and intention but in term of social structure causes.

Mark’s influence to Durkheim

“Division of labour in society” Durkheim focuses on labour, echoes Marx’s idea, on causal flow start from material substratum, eg, population density, interaction via group structure.

Durkheim against economic materialism:-
- Causal connection ran in both direction between material substratum and mental phenomena
- Marxist economic determinism “unscientific” assuming certain factors had causal pre-eminence when that could only by a hypothesis, the presupposition cannot not be proven.

How did Durkheim treat “sociology” as “science”

Sociology is not merely study of individual, different from psychology, he coins

Social Fact “The rule of sociological method”
(Note: rule here is not laws of method, is provisional, practically, strategically employed to facilitate investigation of social phenomena)
The following is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89mile_Durkheim#Theories_and_ideas
Social facts

Durkheim was concerned primarily with how societies could maintain their integrity and coherence in the modern era, when things such as shared religious and ethnic background could no longer be assumed. In order to study social life in modern societies, Durkheim sought to create one of the first scientific approaches to social phenomena. Along with Herbert Spencer, Durkheim was one of the first people to explain the existence and quality of different parts of a society by reference to what function they served in keeping the society healthy and balanced, and is thus sometimes seen as a precursor to functionalism. Durkheim also insisted that society was more than the sum of its parts. Thus unlike his contemporaries Ferdinand Tönnies and Max Weber, he focused not on what motivates the actions of individual people (methodological individualism), but rather on the study of social facts, a term which he coined to describe phenomena which have an existence in and of themselves and are not bound to the actions of individuals. He argued that social facts had an independent existence greater and more objective than the actions of the individuals that composed society and could only be explained by other social facts rather than, say, by society's adaptation to a particular climate or ecological niche.

Sociological explanation causality: seek the cause of phenomenon, determine the effect.

Methodological Individualism vs Structural Individualism

To understand the way which a society conceives itself and world around it, we must consider the nature of society not only nature of individual.

Methodological individualism is a philosophical method aimed at explaining and understanding broad society-wide developments as the aggregation of decisions by individuals. In the most extreme version, the "whole" is nothing but the "sum of its parts" (atomism). It has also been described as "reductionism," a reduction of the explanation of all large entities by reference to smaller ones. It should, however, be noted that methodological individualism does not imply political individualism, although methodological individualists like Friedrich Hayek and Karl Popper were opponents of collectivism. A specific formulation of methodological individualism might also incorporate hypotheses about the relations of individuals to society.

Social Fact is:- the social structures and cultural norms and values that are external to the individual.

every way of acting, whether fixed or not, which is capable of exercising an external constraint on the individual; or which is general throughout a given society, whilst having an existence of its own, independent of its individual manifestations.

Social constraint: different from habit, which dominate within, like social beliefs and practices act on us from outside. Social constraint comes from the prestige with which certain representations are invested.

Problem in distinguishing the habit or social constraint. Sometimes, social constrain can become habit. Therefore hard to identify social facts.

Three groups of social facts:
1. Morphological structure e.g. density of population
2. social institution e.g. family, economic political religious institution
3. Social current, e.g. opinion, moral concept, religious dogmas, legal rules.

Social current --> way of being--> institution

Therefore, social facts can be material and immaterial, classified along a continuum, from minimal to maximal crystallization or institutionalization.

Rules for observing social facts:

1. considering the social facts as things. Objectivity- a thing cannot be modified simply by an act of will; to change it requires some degree of strenuous effort.

Thing :- is an object of knowledge which understanding does not naturally penetrate.

Phenomenon (as it appears)
Noumenon (as it is)

To gain understanding by observation and experiment, it is progressing process from the outside and external to the least visible and most profound; to adopt a particular attitude towards social facts, external to the individual; mentality of group different from that of individual, it has own laws to separate sociology from psychology.

2. Social facts can be normal, facts which are as they should be
or abnormal (pathological), fact which ought to be something other than what they are identify normal.

That is to say there is possibility for social reform. Social action reform, need to address “function”.

19th century, popular theories for social evolution is each society at its particular level of evolution, has its own “normal” and “pathological” social facts
(problem: is the society in transition, has it stabilized? How to determine?)