Durkheim x34 Copy

7/29/2019 Durkheim x34 Copy

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/durkheim-x34-copy 1/34

1

Durkheim’s Origins:

IntroductionJewish origins; school success

Franco-Prussian War (1870-1) as

traumatic event

Son killed in WWI

Outsider as critical perspective

• Training in philosophy, drifted into sociology

– Studied in Germany

– Initial appointment in education in Bordeaux – Moved to Paris as creator of a new, scientific

sociology

– Enabling effects – new insights into society as a system

(differentiation)

– centrality of culture and religion for understandingsocial order

– Constraining effects – tendency toward scientism

– reification of “society” and identification with socialorder

(1858-1917)



Comparative Issues: Introduction

•

Contrast with Marx and Weber• Different historical contexts: mid vs. late 19th c.

• Metatheory

• Marx: early vs late (historicism vs. positivism)

• Weber: anti-positivist structuralist historicism

• Durkheim: sophisticated positivism

• Empirical Theory: Model of society

• Marx: conflict model based on a theory of commodification and contradiction

• Weber: conflict model based commodification andrationalization, with on multiple conflicts and

unpredictable outcomes• Durkheim: organic model based on a process of

differentiation as progress

• Normative theory: Different conceptions of the tasksof “scientific knowledge”

• Marx: unity of theory and practice oriented towardworking class revolution

• Weber: sociology distinct from politics,ambiguous relation to reform

• Durkheim: unity of theory and applicationoriented toward social reform

2



3

The Historical Context: France, Europe

1880s-1914

• Economy

– Expansion of capitalism – Boom and bust cycle

• Social structure

– Class conflict, labour unrest

– Urbanization, fear of “masses”

• Politics

– Franco-Prussian War (1870): Symptom of French backwardness

– Liberal left: critiques of conservatism

• Conservative fear of “mass society”,disorder

• Liberalism: a new form of order, regulatedby state and sciences

– World War I: 1914-1918

• Culture

– The Dreyfus affair: new concept of

“intellectuals” as critics – Need for educational reform, better adaptationto modernity

• Sociological Implications

– Secularization and modernization: science assalvation

– Sociology and the nation-state: legitimating thediscipline



4

Origins of Durkheim’s Theory

• French tradition: Selectively drew upon

Montesquieu, Rousseau, Saint-Simon andComte

• Vehemently rejected British utilitarianism

(individual-first theories of Smith,

Bentham, Spencer)

– Social prior to the individual

– Norms based of action, not rational calculation

• The German Connection:

• Influenced by Kant’s epistemology

• Against Marx

• Rejects economic reductionism

• Crisis can be resolved without revolution

– Rethinking Ferdinand Toennies

• Gemeinschaft as oppressive: mechanical

solidarity

• Gesellschaft as liberating: organic

solidarity



5

• The (early) Anglo-American Reception:

1920s-60s

– Became foundation of anthropological and

sociological functionalism (Parsons):

structures explained in term of “needs of

society” (organic analogy) – Viewed as a “conservative” defender of

social order, though oriented toward a

“liberal” model of modernization and

progress

• The French Durkheim:

– Durkheim the structuralist (i.e. a

metatheory based on linguistic analogy;

example semiotics or the “science of

signs”) – The radical Durkheim as democratic

socialist

– Aspects critically appropriated by French

structuralism (e.g. semiotics) and

poststructuralism

Reading Durkheim: Two Receptions



6

Durkheim’s Basic Concepts: A Preview

• Metatheory: “Social facts” as focus of

analysis; sophisticated variant of positivism

• Empirical Theory:

• Key facts: “collective consciousness”

– Closer to “conscience” in referring to beliefs

(norms)

– Collective because shared as unconscious“consensus”

– Expressed in “collective representations” (symbols,

language, classification systems”

• Social order (solidarity, integration)

– Normal condition of society – Sustained by form of integration (mechanical vs.

organic)

• Institutions: fulfill “functional” needs of social

order

• Normal vs. pathological facts

• Norms: regulate social action

• Normative theory: medical analogy of social

pathology



7

Metatheory: Sociology as a Research

Program

• Positivist metatheory

– Ontology:

• Realism: “social fact as things” as “object” of inquiry

• The subjective is only real as objective norms aspart of collective consciousness, hence an(epiphenomenal) effect of structures

– Epistemology:• A multidimensional positivism: treat “social facts”

as “things”

• Adapt multiple methods to peculiarities of socialfacts

– Action:

• Subject constrained by norms: soft determinism

• Action more voluntary in “modern” societies

– Explanation: a multidimensional positivism

• Historical methods:e.g., education

• Causal methods: e.g., suicide

• Functional methods: e.g., division of labour,explain the persistence, though not origins of institutions

• Structuralist methods: e.g. symbolic forms of religion



8

Metatheory: “The Rules of Sociological

Method”

• Social facts: “… there is in every society a certaingroup of phenomena which may be differentiatedfrom those studied by the other natural sciences…When I fulfill my obligations as brother, husband orcitizen.. The system of signs I use to express mythought, the system of currency… These types of

conduct or thought are not only external to theindividual but are, moreover, endowed withcoercive power, by virtue of which they imposethemselves upon him, independent of his individualwill. Of course, when I fully consent and conformto them, this constraint is felt only slightly, if at

all…” (McIntosh, 207-8)• Explanation: “Sociology does not need to choose

between the great hypotheses which dividemetaphysicians. It needs to embrace free will nomore than determinism. All that it asks is that theprinciple of causality be applied to social

phenomena” (McIntosh, 209).• Anti-psychologism: the “social” as a reality sui

generis: “Sociology is, then, not an auxiliary of anyother science, it is itself a distinct and autonomousscience…” (McIntosh, 211)



9

Contested Metatheoretical Issues:

• Ontology: excessive structuralism realism;

no theory of the subject (as in early Marx

and Weber)

• Epistemology: Positivism does not

adequately account for subjectivity and

meaning• Theory of action:

– No strategy for analyzing micro-interactions,

i.e. how norms negotiated (as in symbolic

interactionism)

– Duality of individual and society:

oversimplifies subject formation and the self

• Explanation: Functionalism: organic

analogy and the “needs of

society” (functional prerequisites)

– How does “society” do this?

– Fallacy of” misplaced concreteness”: society

treated as an agent with intentions, needs

– More valid for analysis of complex

organizations whose needs and purposes

determined by management



10

Problems in Durkheim’s Methodology

• No strategy for analyzing micro-

interactions, i.e. how norms negotiated (asin symbolic interactionism)

• Duality of individual and society

oversimplifies subject formation and the

self • Notion of “needs of society” (functional

prerequisites)

– How does “society” do this?

– Fallacy of” misplaced concreteness”: society

treated as an agent with intentions, needs – More valid for analysis of complex

organizations whose needs and purposes

determined by management



11

*Digression on the Logic of Inquiry:

Systems Theory (optional)

• Organic analogy elaborated as general systems

theory (1930s-40s)

– Assumptions of unified science

– Basis: structure, function, evolution in the

inorganic, organic and cultural worlds

– Functional analysis as the methodology of

systems theory

– Examples of self-regulating (purposive)systems

• Cybernetic systems (e.g. thermostat,radar)

• Homeostatic systems (e.g. bodytemperature)

– Systems theory still influential in

organizational theory and business

• Logic of functional analysis: teleological model

of causality

– Assumption: integrated system (whole +

parts) that is self-regulating (dynamicequilibrium)

– Manifest functions

– Latent functions



12

Durkheim’s Empirical Theory of

Society: The General Model of Order

and Differentiation

• Problematics Underlying Durkheim’s

Empirical Sociology: A Critique of both

conservatism and Marxism

– A theory of social order

• Response to conservative fear of

individualism (mass society = atomization)

• Proposes concept of “organic solidarity” as

new principle of order

• Individualism limited by spaces in the

division of labour: inter-dependance

creates stable order

– A theory of moral authority

• A response to conservative fear of decline

of religion

• A rejection of utilitarian concept of the

rational individual

• Alternative: recognition of non-rational

foundations of social order (i.e., pre-

contractual aspects of contract = norms)



13

The Division of Labour in Society (1893): A

Defense of Modernity

• Society as a Moral Reality

– The social as a reality sui generis

• Against biological and psychological

reductionism

• Social reveals emergent properties (not D’s term)

• Durkheims critics charge the result a new

form of sociological reductionism:

sociologism

• The Differentiation Model of Change:Origins of the Evolution of the Division of

Labour

– Increased population density:

differentiation and specialization

– Urbanization: proximity

– Expansion of communication and

transportation: moral density

– Evolution = movement from low to high

differentiation



14

Evolution as Differentiation: The

Transition from Mechanical to Organic

Solidarit

• Origins of terms: reversal of Toennies in terms

of model of social integration (or solidarity,

order)

– Mechanical solidarity = Gemeinschaft

– Organic solidarity = Gesellschaft

– Reversal of evaluations:

• Mechanical: oppressive, simple

• Organic: opens up individualism,

enhances productivity

• Key: new principle of order based on

interdependence and difference, not

identity and sameness

• Differentiation as Progress: An EvolutionaryTheory of Change

– change determined by needs of system

– assumes that differentiation automatically

leads to progress



15

Chart: Two Forms of Social Integration

Function Reproduce

order

Order +

expanded

power

Structure Low divisionof labour

High divisionof labour

Norms Repressive

sanctions +

Penal law

Restitutive

sanctions +

cooperative

law

Form of

conscience

collective

Intensive

belief,

unifying

consensus,

homogeneity

Plural

consensus,

individualism

Content of

conscience

collective

Purely

religious,

unquestioned;

concrete and

specific

Increasingly

secular;

abstract and

general

Mechanical Organic



16

Contested Issues About Differentiation

I: Individualism and S ecialization

• “But does not the division of labor by makingeach of us an incomplete being bring on a

diminution of individual personality?…Wetake off from the principle that man ought to

realize his nature as man…as Aristotle said.

But this nature does not remain constantthroughout history; it is modified with

societies.. Far from being trammeled by theprogress of specialization, individual

personality develops with the division of

labor…To be a person is to be an autonomoussource of action. Man acquires this quality

only in so far as there is something in him

which is his alone and which individualizes

him, as he is something more than a simple

incarnation of the generic type… we have

shown…how activity becomes richer and

more intense as it becomes more

specialized” (Div. Of Labor, 402-4)



17

• Questions: Are There Limits toSpecialization and Differentiation?

– Implications for evolutionary model:will limitations produce “pathologies”?

– Overspecialization: lack of adaptabilityto change

– Is the formation of the individuallimited to work?

• Contrast with: – Marx’s analysis of alienation and

commodification

– Weber’s analysis of instrumentalrationalization



18

Contested Issues II: Differentiation and

Gender• “It is certain at the same time that sexual labor

is more and more divided…Long ago womenretired from warfare and public affairs, and

consecrated her entire life to her family. Since

then, her role has become even more

specialized. Today, among cultivated people,

the woman leads a completely differentexistence from that of the man. One might say

that the two great functions of the psychic life

are thus dissociated, that one of the sexes takes

care of the affective functions and the other of

intellectual functions. In view of the fact that incertain classes women participate in artistic and

literary life just as men, we might be led to

believe, to be sure, that the occupations of the

two sexes re becoming homogeneous. But, even

in this sphere of action, woman carried out herown nature, and her role is very specialized… if

art and letter begin to become feminine tasks,

the other sex seems to permit it in order to give

itself more specially to the pursuit of science...



19

• … the functional differences are rendered

materially visible…Not only are the height,

weight, and general form very dissimilar inmen and women, but Dr. Lebon has shown…

that with the progress of civilization the brain

of the two sexes differentiates itself more and

more. According to this observer, this

progressive chart would be due both to theconsiderable development of the masculine

crania and to a stationary or even regressive

state of female crania…”though the average

cranium of Parisian men ranks among the

greatest known crania, the average of Parisianwomen ranks among the smallest observed,

even below the crania of the Chinese, and

hardly above those of the women of New

Caledonia” (Div. Of Labor, 60).

• Questions: – Issue of changing biological knowledge

– Dilemma of using biology to justify what

of “natural” (danger of gender

essentialism



20

Themes of Durkheim’s Empirical

Sociology

• Macrosociology: Division of Labour

– Focus on specialization, not hierarchy asinequality

– Analysis of principles of integration

– Focus on “abnormal” functioning

• Deviance/Abnormality: Crime, Law andSuicide

– Normal relative: defined in opposition to abnormal

– Deviance functionally necessary for society

• Sociology of Education – Strategic institution in modernity

– Replaces church as primary sources of socialization

• Occupational Groups – Workers need organizations for normative regulation

– Basis of social identity

• Sociology of Religion and Knowledge

– Religion as primary source of social solidarity

– Changed function in modern societies



21

A Diagnosis of Modern Society:

Abnormalities

• Abnormal division of labour: ThreeForms

– Anomic: meaninglessness

– Forced: lack of spontaneity, no free choice

– Lack of coordination: poor organization• Durkheim’s Strategy of Reform

– Anomic: new norms cultivate by

occupational associations and education

– Forced: need for greater equality of

opportunity

– Lack of coordination: organizational

analysis



22

Crime and Law

• Repressive vs restitutive justice(McIntosh, 185-193)

– Mechanical solidarity

• repressive law

• Penal law (negative)

– Organic solidarity• Resistitutive law (shaming, reintegration)

• Coordinating law (constructive, e.g.business law)

• Normal vs. abnormal

– Normal not inherent in nature of act – Defined in relation to deviance

• Social functions of deviance – Reinforces sense of solidarity (11 September

and American patriotism)

– Deviance necessary for society

• Focus of criminology influenced byDurkheim

– Community shaming

– Re-socialization



23

A Theory of Suicide

• Psychology vs. sociology (McIntosh,212-231)

– Suicide appears to be a personal choice

– But rates of suicide vary by social groups (Catholicsvs Protestants vs Jews)

– The hypothesis: correlation of social integration and

suicide• The methodology: causal(variable)

analysis

– Independent variable: degree of social integration

– Dependent variable: rate of suicide

• Types of suicide: too much vs. two littleindividualism

– The integrative axis: egoism and altruism

– The regulative axis: anomie and fatalism

• Methodological implications:

– Illustration of variable analysis – Problem of official statistics



24

Sociology of Education I: HistoricalContext

• Historically, education controlled by

church – Functional necessity of a new type of education

to meet needs of organic solidarity

– Normative (policy) implications : seculareducation needs to replace religious

• Late 19th century French education – Public control still disputed; religious

influences dominant

– Strict discipline and use of corporal punishment

• Authority necessary to deal with “homo

duplex” – Humans divided: body vs soul, egoism vs.

community, sensual vs sacred

– Agreed with conservatives the constraintnecessary

– Rejected Rousseau’s reliance on the “natural”and “spontaneity”

– But “content” of constraint should not bereligious and traditional, but secular andfunctional



25

Sociology of Education II: MoralAuthority

• The duality of moral authority: basis of

“discipline”

– Enforced by negative sanctions

– Complemented positively by sense of duty

based cultivation of a sense of the “good”

• Education should be public, secular anduniversal

– Should overcome “unjust inequality” through

equality of opportunity

– Core learning for citizenship, as member of

society

– Specialized learning to fit into needs of the

occupational structure

• Authority cannot be based on mere

punishment – Deterrence (negative sanctions” does not

produce commitment

– “One of the chief aims of moral education is to

inspire I the child a feeling for the dignity of

man. Corporal punishment is a continualoffense to this sentiment” (G, 76).



26

Occupational Groups: Professional

Ethics and Civic Morals

• Occupational Groups: Professional Ethicsand Civic Morals

– Self-regulation based on group norms to avert

anomie

– Functional norms for the workplace:

professional ethics

– Citizenship: civic morals

• Contested Issues

– The medical analogy: assumes “social

technology” possible – Value as function of social “needs”: how to

determine?

– Education: who should determine curriculum?

– What form of individualism?



27

Religion I: Elementary Forms of Religious Life

(1912) • Defining Religion

– Traditional definitions: focus on content (e.g.,

supreme being) – A functional definition: the” sacred”and the

“profane”: example of totemism

– “Thus we arrive at the following definition: Areligion is a unified system of beliefs and

practices relative to sacred things, i.e., things

set apart and forbidden - beliefs and practiceswhich unite into one single moral communitycalled a Church, all those who adhere tothem” (McIntosh, p. 236)

• Magic vs. religion

– Primacy of ritual in religion: based on“collective effervescence”

– “There is no Church of magic”(McIntosh, 236):no durable relation between magician and client

– Magic as proto-science

• Civil religion: The Secular as Sacred – Nationalism: American patriotism; State

ideology: Soviet Communism

– “What essential difference is there between anassembly of Christians… or of Jews… or areunion of citizens commemorating… some

great event in the national life” (McIntnosh,247).



28

Religion II: Universal Functions

• Focus on “elementary form” of religion

– Prefigures all religious phenomena

– Relied on ethnographic reports on Australiantribes

• Universal functions of religion: fulfill needs of society

– “In reality, then, there are no religions whichare false. All are true in their own fashion; allanswer, though in different ways, to the givenconditions of human existence” (McIntosh,233)

– Can be hierarchically ranked in terms of

complexity of ideas and concepts; does notaffect asic function

• Collective representations re-enacted in ritual =projection of society:

– “Religious representations are collectiverepresentations which express collective

realities; the rites are a manner of acting whichtake rise in the midst of the assembled groupsand which are detined to excie, maintain orrecreate certain mental states in thesegroups” (McIntosh, 234)

– Example: structure of cosmos represents

circular organization of tribal camp



29

Religion III: Ritual and Religious

Practice

• Totemism in tribal culture”: basis of deep

symbolic structure – plant, animal or object that symbolizes tribe or

clan

– “it is the outward and visible form of…thetotemic principle or god”

– “But it is also the symbol of the determinedsociety called the clan” (McIntosh, 239)

• Forms of ritual

– Negative: interdictions, taboos regarding thesacred

– Positive: initiation rites; sacrifices

• Religion not completely illusory

– It is a creation of human mind; but serves socialfunctions

– “it is necessary to avoid seeing in this theory of religion a simple restatement of historical

materialism..It is true that we take it as evidentthat socia life depends upon its materialfoundation…but collective consciousness issomething more than a mere epiphenomenon of its morphological basis, just as individualconsciousness is something more than a simple

efflorescence of the nervous system” (EF, 471)



30

*Religion IV: Basis of a Sociology of

Knowledge (optional)

• All knowledge originates in religion

– Later differentiation of more specialized forms:science

– Modernity: religion demoted to status of fulfillingpersonal needs

• Durkheim’s structuralism

– Kant: human categories: ideas as innate, a priori

– Empiricists: categories as built up fromexperience

– Durkheim: categories and classificationsoriginate in society

• Influenced foundation of French structuralist

anthropology: Claude Lévi-Strauss who addedlinguistic analogy to the study of myths

• Contemporary poststructuralist theory: areaction against the determinism of structuralism

• Society as a reality sui generis: a systemof logical classifications (EF, 28-9)

– Science as accumulation in space and time of human knowledge: “impersonal reason is onlyanother name given to collective thought” (EF,494)

– “Thus sociology appears destined to open a newway to the science of man” (EF, 495)



31

Normative Theory I

• Science as key to progress

– Enlightenment assumption = “modernist

metanarrative”

– Mission of science to provide guidance for humanity

• The interdependence between facts and values

– Hume and Weber:logical disjunction between factsand values

– Durkheim: The necessary subordination of values tosocial needs (functions)

• The “normal” and the abnormal (or“pathological”): the medical analogy

– Sociologist diagnoses society: social pathologies

– Prescribes “cure”: restoration of “normality”

• Between liberalism and socialism – State as regulator

• Involves indicative planning: provides rules notcommands

• Anticipates the welfare state: sociology guidessolution of social problems, provides safety nets

– Largely private economy; rejection of socializationof the means of production

– Not a “conservative” in the classical sense



32

Normative Theory II: A “Non-

Ideological” Perspective?

• “Sociology thus understood will be neitherindividualistic, communistic, nor socialistic in thesense commonly given these words. On principle, itwill ignore these theories, in which it could notrecognize any scientific value, since they tend not

to describe or interpret, but to reform, socialorganization… We do not mean, however, that itought to take no interest in practical questions…they are derive from facts and not from emotions…they must be formulated for the sociologist in quiteother terms than for the masses, and that the

tentative solutions… could not coincide with any of those which now satisfy various interest groups.But the role of sociology from this point of viewmust properly consist in emancipating us form allparties, not to the extent of negating all doctrine,but by persuading us to assume toward thesequestions a special attitude that science alone cangive us in its direct contact with things… Sciencealone can teach us to treat historic institutions…with respect but without mystic awe, by making usappreciate both their permanent and their ephemeralaspects, their stability and their infinitevariability” (McIntosh, 210).



33

Sociology and Social Policy: Moral

Education

• Durkheim’s “socialism”: the state as

regulator

– Varieties of “socialism”

• Command economy: socialization of production

• Regulation: setting rules, creatingconsensus

• Prophet of the welfare state?: socialdemocracy

• Normative foundations – Based on medical analogy

– Normality as social health

– Individualism as a modern possibility

• A religion of the individual

• Limited by societal imperatives

• Goal of reform

– Intervention to create a new moral authority

– Focus on strategic institutions

• Abnormal division of labour (already discussed)

• Education

• Occupational associations



Criticism of Durkheim

• Metatheory

• Epistemology: positivist realism• Multiple methods, but no analysis of

subjectivity

• Radical structuralism does not account

for agency - sociological reductionism

• Ontology: inadequate theory of the subject

• Empirical Theory: Theory of Society

– Theory of organic solidarity: Functional

integration does not adequately account forconflict and change

– Differentiation as evolution mechanistic

and contributes to problematic arguments

about history as well as gender

• Normative Theory – Medical analogy faulty: distinction between

normal and abnormal problematic

– Value assumptions cannot be derived from“needs” of society

Date post:	14-Apr-2018
Category:	Documents
Upload:	glenn-joseph-cabradilla
View:	219 times
Download:	0 times

Durkheim x34 Copy

Documents