Profile Major Works Resources

Émile Durkheim, 1858-1917 

Photo of Emile Durkheim

French sociologist, spiritual disciple of Auguste Comte and founder of Année Sociologique.  His 1893 book challenged the economist's idea that social harmony could arise directly from individual self-interest and free contract.  Durkheim showed how social differentiation from division of labor could nonetheless be consistent with social cohesion.  He introduced the notion of "organic solidarity" to explain this.  Contra Adam Smith, Durkheim saw the division of labor as the outcome of an evolutionary process, rather than a series of "decisions" (whose decision?) to make society more productive.  Contra Karl Marx, Durkheim emphasized the supremacy of social causes over economic ones. 

 

  

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Major Works of Émile Durkheim

  • The Division of Labor in Society, 1893 [McM] 
  • The Rules of Sociological Method, 1895 
  • Suicide: A study in sociology, 1897 
  • Elementary Forms of Religious Life, 1912 
  • L'Allemagne au dessus de tout : la mentalité allemande et la guerre, 1915 
  • Education and Sociology, 1922 
  • Sociology and Philosophy, 1924 
HET

 
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Resources on Emile Durkheim

 

 
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