Emile Durkheim Sociological Theories

Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)

Introduction: Key Themes

  • Preeminence of the Social: Durkheim emphasized the importance of society over the individual.
  • Scientific Study of Society: He believed society could be studied scientifically and empirically.
  • Social Dimension of Phenomena: Durkheim was interested in the social aspects of all human phenomena.
  • Society as Social Facts: He viewed society as composed of social facts that can be studied through observation and statistical/empirical data.
  • Positivist Approach: Durkheim aimed to establish sociology as an independent science through a positivist theory and methodology, distinguishing it from other human sciences like psychology and philosophy.
  • Realism Social: He adopted a perspective of social realism, grounded in the idea of society's autonomous reality.
  • Explanation of Social Phenomena: Social phenomena, being realités sui generis, should be explained with reference to other social facts, rather than individual consciousness or abstraction.

Important Works

  • The Division of Labor in Society (1893)
  • The Rules of Sociological Method (1895)
  • Suicide (1897)
  • The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912)
  • Establishing Sociology: Durkheim wanted to establish sociology as a scientific discipline with a defined study area and appropriate methodology.
  • Social Integration: He was interested in the problem of social integration, especially in the context of rising modern individualism.
  • Practical Implications: Interested in implications.

Disciplinary Distinction of Sociology

  • Study of Social Facts: Sociology studies social facts, including social structures, cultural norms, and values, which are external to and coercive upon the individual.
  • Society Beyond Individuals: Society is more than just the sum of its individual members.
  • Studying Social Facts as Things: Social facts should be studied as "things" through the collection of EXTERNAL data/information via observation and experimentation.
  • Definition of Social Fact: Any way of acting, whether fixed or not, capable of exerting external constraint on an individual; any way of acting generalized in a given society, existing independently of its individual manifestations.
  • External Constraint: Social facts are experienced as external constraints, not internal inclinations; they are general at the societal level and not tied to a particular individual.
  • Uniqueness of Social Facts: Social facts have a unique character and cannot be reduced to individual consciousness; they can be explained with reference to other social facts.
  • Examples: rules, moral obligations, social conventions, institutions, language, etc.

Social Facts: Material and Immaterial

  • Material Social Facts: architectural styles, legal codes, forms of technology.
  • Immaterial Social Facts: norms, values, culture.
  • Complex Interactions: When individuals interact in complex ways, the interactions can be explained by reference to "laws specific to these forms of interaction."
  • Social things are actualized only through people; they are the product of human activity. ([1895] 1982:17).
  • Society is not a simple sum of individuals. ([1895] 1982:103).
  • Relational Realism: Even though society comprises human minds and lacks a separate "spiritual" substance, it can be understood through the study of interactions, not individuals. Interactions, even if non-material, have levels of reality.
  • This concept is referred to as relational realism (Alpert, 1939).
  • Continuum of Materiality: Durkheim viewed social facts as existing along a continuum of materiality (Lukes, 1972:9–10).
  • Sociologists typically start a study by focusing on empirically accessible material social facts to understand non-material social facts, which are the main goal.
  • Material Social Facts: The size and density of the population, communication channels, and housing arrangements (Andrews, 1993).
    • Durkheim named these facts morphological, and they play an important role in his first book, The Division of Labor in Society ([1893]).
    • At another level are structural components (e.g., bureaucracy), which are a mix of morphological components (population density in a building and their communication lines) and non-material social facts (such as bureaucratic norms).

Immaterial Social Facts

  • Moralitatea, constiinta colectiva, reprezentari colective si curente sociale
  • Important Immaterial Social Facts: morality, collective consciousness, collective representations, and social currents.

Collective Consciousness

  • Definition: "The totality of beliefs and sentiments common to the average citizens of the same society forms a determinate system which has its own life; we may call it the collective or common consciousness… It is, then, something altogether different from particular consciences, although it can be realized only through them" (Durkheim, [1893] 1964:79–80).
  • Description: A general structure of shared meanings, norms, and beliefs.
  • Collective Mind: Durkheim addresses concern about the nature of collective consciousness - "But how should we conceive of this social consciousness? Is it a simple, transcendent entity, floating above society? … Experience certainly shows us nothing of the kind. The collective mind [l’esprit collectif] is only a composite of individual minds. Yet the latter are not mechanically juxtaposed and closed off from one another. They are in perpetual interaction through the exchange of symbols; they interpenetrate one another. They group themselves according to their natural affinities; they coordinate and systematize themselves. In this way there takes form a completely new psychological entity, without equal in the world. The consciousness with which it is endowed is infinitely more intense and more vast than those which resound within it. For it is 'a consciousness of consciousnesses' [une conscience de consciences]. In it, we find condensed, in equal measure, all the vitality of the present and of the past" (Durkheim, [1885] 1978:103).
  • The collective mind is not transcendent, but is derived from the interactions of individual minds.

Mechanical vs. Organic Solidarity

  • Primitive or Segmentary Society (Mechanical Solidarity):
    • Characterized by mechanical solidarity.
  • Modern Society (Organic Solidarity):
    • Characterized by organic solidarity.
    • Arises from population increase and intersegmental interactions.
    • Leads to a struggle for existence, promoting functional interdependence.
    • The division of labor results in specialization.

Law and Social Solidarity

  • Mechanical Solidarity: Associated with repressive law, involving violent sanctions to punish rule violators.
  • Organic Solidarity: Associated with restitutive law, involving judgments related to damages and fines that "restore" losses to victims.

The Division of Labor

  • Functions become increasingly specialized
  • Law of Division of Labor: The principle applies both to organisms and societies. Societal functions (political, administrative, juridical, economic, etc.) are increasingly specialized.
  • Basis of Social Order: Social division is an objective fact that can be empirically observed and studied through comparisons.
  • Function in Two Senses: 1) a system of living movements; 2) the relationships between these movements and the needs of the organism (this second sense is the focus).
  • Classical Interpretation: division of labor increases both the productive capacity/worker skill, which is the condition for societies developing intellectually/materially. It is the source of civilization.
  • Moral value: Division of labor has no moral value (is neutral from an axiological point of view), but it does fulfill a series of needs.
  • Notable Effect: The most notable effect of the division of labor is that it tightly binds functions together, enabling societies to exist that would not otherwise be possible because those functions must be fulfilled.
  • "The most obvious effect of the division of labor is not that of rendering the functions divided more productive, but that of rendering them solidary"([1893] 1984, p.21).

Social Solidarity and the Division of Labour

  • Social Solidarity Source: division of labor is not an economic as economists state.
  • Origin of Social Solidarity: Social Solidarity origins with the division of labour.
  • Social Function: the social function is to increase social intergration and give social cohesion.
  • “Thus, it is the continual distribution of different human tasks that constitutes the principal element of social solidarity and that becomes the determining cause of the dimension and increasing complexity of the social organism.” (Idem, p. 23)
  • Simbol: The symbol of Social function is the law.

Types of Social Solidarity

  • Visible Symbol: Law serves as a visible symbol of solidarity; social solidarity manifests through its effects.
  • Relationship between members: The closer ties between society member the more able they are maintain relationships betweem members.
  • Number of relation: that is direclty proportional to the legals norms which determine them.
  • Specificaly orgaized norm: Law representing the way social life is ordered and is stable.
  • Law Essential types: Law reflecting essential types of social solidarity.
  • Solidarity, as a social fact, must be studied by sociology; it cannot be known except through the social effects it produces.
  • Different types of law reproduce types of solidarity that exist.

Classification of Laws and Sanctions

  • Law Classification: Laws must be classified to understand the types of solidarity.
  • Classification Criteria: Based on associated sanctions:
    • Repressive Sanctions: Punishments applied for violating the law (criminal law).
    • Restitutive Sanctions: Restore the state of affairs before the act, re-establish deviated relations (civil, commercial, administrative, constitutional law).
  • Type of solidarity associated with these types of laws? must be asked.

Mechanical Solidarity and Repressive Law

  • Mechanical Solidarity: The bond of social solidarity corresponding to repressive law is one where its violation constitutes a crime.
    • A crime is any act that provokes a characteristic reaction (punishment) against the perpetrator. Crimes are condemned by society members.
    • There's an antagonism between these acts and society's broader interests.
  • Collective or Common Consciousness: The totality of beliefs/sentiments shared by society members forms a self-standing system (collective consciousness).
  • Infracțional act: An act becomes criminal when it offends strong, well-defined states of collective consciousness.
    • This collectivity represents a force/moral authority superior to the individual.
  • Modern society: Modern society punishes to protect itself, not for revenge.

Mechanical Solidarity Explained

  • "There is a social solidarity that is produced by the resemblance of consciousness, or that is derived from it. This solidarity is what repressive law materially expresses, at least in its essential elements. The more that these relations over which that consciousness extends are numerous, the more strongly entwined the members of a society are with each other. The more, consequently, social cohesion derives entirely from this resemblance, and bears that mark." (Idem., p. 64)

Organic Solidarity

  • Solidarity that derives from the division of labor.
  • Premise: there is a 'real' form of solidarity that connects a place with a person.

Negative Solidarity and its Limitations

  • Things are in society because of individuals Although people are in society because of relationships, the function does not bring them together.
  • "Rules pertaining to “real” rights and relationships which are established by virtue of them form a well-defined system, whose role is not to bind together the different parts of society, but, on the contrary, to separate them from each other, and to carefully mark the limits between each. They do not correspond to any positive social bond" (Idem., p. 75)
  • "The first condition for any entity to be coherent is that the parts that form it do not enter into discordant conflict. But such external harmony does not produce cohesion. Instead, it presupposes it. Negative solidarity is possible only where another type, positive in nature, is present, and is at once its result and its condition."

Cooperative Law and the Division of Labor

  • Solidarity and regulation:
    • Relations that are regulated by cooperative law, with restitutive sanctions, and the solidarity expressed, result from the social division of labor.
    • The measure of concentration a society has achieved through the social division of labor function is the degree of cooperative law development with its restitutive sanctions.

Positive Solidarities

  • Types of positive solidarities:
    • connects the individual directly to society, without any intermediary
    • the individual depends on society because he depends on the parts that contribute to its constitution.
  • "The term is used in the first case to designate a society more or less organized, composed of all the beliefs and sentiments common to all members of the group: this is the collective type. In contrast, in the second case, the society to which we are strongly attached is a system of different, special functions, united by definite relationships." (Idem., p. 83).
  • Same Society: The same society viewed from two different perspectives.

Defining Mechanical Solidarity

  • Ideas annd Common: In first case, that type of solidarity only be powerful to the extent that the ideas and common trends for all society members are more numberous when compared individuality.
  • “Solidarity which comes from likenesses is at its maximum when the collective consciousness completely envelops our whole consciousness, and coincides in all points with it. At that moment, our individuality is nil. It can only appear when the community fills us less completely.” (Idem., p. 84) = Mechanical Solidarity

Individual and Collective Consciousness

  • Mechanical Solidarity Dependency: In mechanical solidarity, the individual consciousness is dependent on and entirely follows the movements of the collective consciousness.
  • Organic Solidarity Difference:. Organic solidarity division of labor arises because individuals are different.
  • Individuality and Sphere of Action: Solidarity Organic is possible that individuals have sphere.
  • "The more extensive this freedom is, the stronger is the cohesion that results from this solidarity. In effect, on the one hand, the more intimately each of us depends on society as labor is divided, the more specialised is the activity of each of us is correspondingly more special, the more personal it is; thus, the more individual it is. () So the individuality of an organism grows at the same time as that of its parts. Society becomes more capable of acting in concert, at the same time that each of its elements has movements that are particularly its own." (Idem. p. 85)

Contractual Solidarity

  • Contractual Exchange: Contractual exchange becomes more common in the industrial society.
  • contracts function as a segment: contracts serve as an important function in society.
  • "the contract is not sufficient unto itself, but is possible only as a result of the regulation of contracts, which is of social origin" (idem., p. 162)
  • Individual Action: sphere function increase simultaneously with central regulation of the machineary.

Synthesis of Durkheim's Argument

  • "Social life comes from a dual souce: the similarity of individual consciousness and the division of social labour. In the first case, the individual is socialized because, lacking any individuality of his own, he merges with his fellows in the same collective type. In the second case, this is because, while his physiognomy and activities are personal to him, differentiating him from his fellows, he depends upon them to the extent that he is distinguished from them, and consequently, depends upon the society which is the result of their combination. Resemblance of consiousness gives rise to rules of law which, under threat of repressive measures, impose uniform beliefs and practices on everybody. The more pronounced the resemblance is, the more completely social life is intermingled with religious life, and the closer economical institutions aproach communism. The division of labour gives rise to rules of law which determine the nature the relations of the function so divided, but breach of the rules entails only measures of reparation, lacking any expiatory character. Every set of rules of law is accompanied, in addition, by a set of rules which are purely moral. Where penal law is very voluminous, common morality is very extensive. This means that there are a large number of collective practices placed under the protection of public opinion. Where resttutive law is highly developed, there is for each occupation a professional morality." (Idem., p. 172)

Causes and Conditions of the Social Division

  • Social Division: Social division depends on the life of scoiety( density and volumne).

Density and Volume of Social Life

  • Density Increase: density have had a progressive increase in contemporary societies.
  • Concentration Society: concentration in scoiety determines the development of labour division and it turns increase again its concentration.
  • Volume in Sociates: Volume in Societies increase the social relations if more membership takes place. Also for the increase of volumne is consider that it is close to the conatct of numbers. The impact volumne has into labor division is identical to density.
  • Diviziunea muncii \varies \în \proportie \direct \cu \volumul \și \densitatea \societăților

Law Expression

  • "The division of labor varies directly with the volume and density of societies, and, if it progresses in a continuous manner in the course of social development, it is because societies regularly become denser and, in general, more voluminous." (Idem, p. 205)
  • Increases the need for labor division.
  • The division of labor becomes more complex as societies become larger and more concentrated.
  • Individuals are not specializing for producing more but for survival in a new conditions.
  • Division of labor will exists because they for social needed.

Conclusions on the Division of Labor

  • "The division of labor at the same time brings together while putting in opposition; it causes activities which are separated to converge; it brings those that are separated closer together. For competition cannot be what caused them to come together, that coming together must have already existed. The individuals between which conflict arises must already be strongly tied to each other and must feel this, that is, they must belong to the same society. () Individuals who are in continuous contact form a society. The division of labor can only take place within a society that had already been created. By this, what we mean is not only that individuals must be tied to each other materially, but there must also exist moral ties between them"(Durkheim p. 218).

Society and Individuality

  • "Collective life did not arise from individual life; on the contrary, it is the latter which arose from the former. Only in this way we can explain how the personal individuality of individuals has been able to take form and grow without causing society to disintegrate. The personality of individuals remains adapted to society, even while detaching itself from it. There is nothing anti-social about this, because it is a product of society." (idem., 221)

Additional Bibliography

  • Emile Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society, Book 1 chs. 1-3&7, Book 2 chs. 1-2, Book 3 ch. 1; Macmillan Press, 1984.