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The ‘Individual’ in the Writings of Émile Durkheim

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Anthony Giddens
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During his life-time, Durkheim's methodological writings were notoriously subject to controversy, and his ‘sociologism’ was widely condemned. These early critiques, often totally misinformed as to the real character of Durkheim's views, have long since ceded place to critical interpretations of Durkheim's writings which are founded upon a more adequate understanding of the themes and the dilemmas inherent in his sociology. Nonetheless, it is arguable that we still await a treatment which fully explores the strengths and weaknesses of Durkheim's method. One main reason for this is that most secondary interpreters of Durkheim have failed to connect his analytical discussion (and rejection) of individualism as a methodological approach to social theory with his developmental conception of the emergence of individualism as a morality brought into being by the growth of the differentiated division of labour. It is commonly accepted-and, indeed, he himself stressed this very strongly-that Durkheim's methodological ideas must be evaluated in relation to their concrete implementation in his more empirical works. But this is generally taken to mean showing how successfully or otherwise he ‘applied’ his methodological views in his other studies. The point I wish to make in this paper is that there is a reciprocal relationship between Durkheim's substantive discussion of the development of individualism and his abstract formulations of sociological method. Durkheim is often regarded as being fervently “anti-individualist”. But in fact his works contain a vigorous defence of individualism—understood in a specific way. In other words, Durkheim's writings represent an attempt to detach “liberal individualism”, regarded as a conception of the characteristics of the modern social order, from “methodological individualism”.

Type
Reflections on Durkheim
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , November 1971 , pp. 210 - 228
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1971

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References

(1) Perhaps the best of the earlier studies of Durkheim is Lacombe, Roger, La méthode sociologique de Durkheim (Paris 1926)Google Scholar.

(2) This point is mentioned by Lukes, Steven in introducing his translation, kheim's, Dur “Individualism and the Intellectuals”, Political Studies, XVII (1969), p. 19Google Scholar.

(3) La science positive de Ia morale en Allemagne, Revue Philosophique, XXIV (1887), 3 partsGoogle Scholar.

(4) Cf. my article, Durkheim's Political Sociology, Sociological Review (forthcoming).

(5) De la division du travail social (Paris 1960), P. XLIIIGoogle Scholar.

(6) See, for example, Nisbet, Robert A., Émile Durkheim (Englewood Cliffs 1965), p. 37 and passimGoogle Scholar.

(7) De la division…, op. cit. p. 396.

(8) L'individualisme et les intellectuels, Revue Bleue, X (1898), 7–13Google Scholar, translated in S. Lukes, loc. cit.

(9) L'évolution pédagogique en France (Paris 1938, republished 1969)Google Scholar. See, for example, pp. 322–323.

(10) Sociologie et philosophie (Paris 1924), p. 106Google Scholar.

(11) The term ‘anomie’ first appears in Durkheim's writings in his review (1887) of Guyau's L'irriligion de l'avenir. The latter author uses the term, however, in a sense closer to Durkheim's conception of moral individualism.

(12) Suicide et natalité: étude de statistique morale, Revue Philosophique, XXVI (1888), 446–463Google Scholar.

(13) See my Capitalism and Modern Social Theory (Cambridge 1971), Chapters VIII and XVGoogle Scholar; and my “Introduction” to Émile Durkheim: Selected writings (forthcoming).

(14) Parsons, however, makes too much of this. See Parsons, Talcott, The Structure of Social Action (Glencoe 1949), pp. 350–353Google Scholar.

(15) Les régles de la méthode sociologique (Paris 1950), p. 8Google Scholar.

(16) Ibid. p. 7.

(17) Sociologie et philosophic, op. cit. pp. 60–62.

(18) Le suicide (Paris 1930), p. 411Google Scholar.

(19) Le dualisme de la nature humaine et ses conditions sociales, Scientia, XV (1914), pp. 206–221Google Scholar, translated in Wolff, K. (ed.), Émile Durkheim: Essays on Sociology and Philosophy (New York/London 1964)Google Scholar.

(20) See The Suicide Problem in French Sociology, in Giddens, Anthony (ed.), The Sociology of Suicide (London 1971)Google Scholar.

(21) Le suicide, op. cit. p. 8.

(22) De la division…, op. cit. p. 399.

(23) This is, of course, reinforced by other aspects of Durkheim's methodology which I do not discuss in this paper: such as the ‘rule’ that “an effect can only have one cause”.

(24) This is the aspect given most prominence by Parsons. See especially The Social System (London 1951), p. 39Google Scholar.

(25) “Introduction” to Émile Durkheim: Selected Writings.

(26) Cf. Merton, R.K., Social structure and anomie, in Social Theory and Social Structure (Glencoe 1963)Google Scholar.

(27) See, for example, Sociologie et philosophie, op. cit. pp. 56–57.

(28) De la division…, op. cit. p. 327.