Durkheim’s theories focusing on sociological methodology, division of labor and social solidarity
Essay 3 – Durkheim
03/29/2014
DURKHEIM: A SUMMARY OF THEORIES IN RELATION TO MARX AND WEBER
Durkheim’s theories focusing on sociological methodology, division of labor and social solidarity
The majority of Durkheim’s work is interested in society and societies ability to preserve coherence and rationality an period of increasing modernity. Throughout his work Durkheim was intensely concerned that society become a legitimate science, this is especially obvious when reading the book ‘Emile Durkheim: Selected Readings in which he goes into great detail about the need for ‘procedure to guide research’. Durkheim aimed to employ the methodologies, techniques of laboratory experimentation to human social interactions. His studies on suicide in the book Suicide demonstrate his application of this new level of scientific methods to his analysis of social behavior. In his study Durkheim analyzed different elements of individuals lifestyle such as religiosity or marriage in an attempt to validate his hypothesis that intense social structures or networks such as marriage or religiosity reduce the probability of an individual committing suicide.
Durkheim differentiated himself from other sociologists through his desire to evaluate social solidarity as a whole. He did not solely want to find connections between lifestyle indicators and suicide, Durkheim wanted to delve much deeper in order to understand and interpret the complex social factors influencing both. Furthermore Durkheim emphasized the significance of sociologists studying society as a part of its circumstantial and dependent environment. He contends that the sociologist “will therefore consider economic facts, the state, morality, law and religion as so many functions of the social organism and will study them as a phenomena which occur in the context of a definite bounded society” (Giddens 57). Durkheim profoundly stressed the importance of sociologists studying society through analysis of facts and
03/29/2014
DURKHEIM: A SUMMARY OF THEORIES IN RELATION TO MARX AND WEBER
Durkheim’s theories focusing on sociological methodology, division of labor and social solidarity
The majority of Durkheim’s work is interested in society and societies ability to preserve coherence and rationality an period of increasing modernity. Throughout his work Durkheim was intensely concerned that society become a legitimate science, this is especially obvious when reading the book ‘Emile Durkheim: Selected Readings in which he goes into great detail about the need for ‘procedure to guide research’. Durkheim aimed to employ the methodologies, techniques of laboratory experimentation to human social interactions. His studies on suicide in the book Suicide demonstrate his application of this new level of scientific methods to his analysis of social behavior. In his study Durkheim analyzed different elements of individuals lifestyle such as religiosity or marriage in an attempt to validate his hypothesis that intense social structures or networks such as marriage or religiosity reduce the probability of an individual committing suicide.
Durkheim differentiated himself from other sociologists through his desire to evaluate social solidarity as a whole. He did not solely want to find connections between lifestyle indicators and suicide, Durkheim wanted to delve much deeper in order to understand and interpret the complex social factors influencing both. Furthermore Durkheim emphasized the significance of sociologists studying society as a part of its circumstantial and dependent environment. He contends that the sociologist “will therefore consider economic facts, the state, morality, law and religion as so many functions of the social organism and will study them as a phenomena which occur in the context of a definite bounded society” (Giddens 57). Durkheim profoundly stressed the importance of sociologists studying society through analysis of facts and
Cited: Tucker, Robert C., ed. 1978. The Marx-Engels Reader. 2nd ed. New York: Norton Weber, Max, and Talcott Parsons. 2003. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications. Giddens, Anthony, ed. 1972. Emile Durkheim: Selected Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Durkheim, Emile. [1957] 1979. Suicide: A Study in Sociology. Translated by John A. Spaulding and George Simpson. New York: Free Press.