Emile Durkheim and the Collective Conscience

Emile Durkheim and the Collective Conscience Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) was a French sociologist who strongly influenced the discipline of sociology. It was apparent to Durkheim that since the French Revolution, the nation had been wracked by conflict and moral crisis (Stones, 2008). At the individual level, rising suicide rates reflected a growing sense of malaise. Durkheim’s goal was to develop a sociology that would help France overcome this continuing moral crisis. By tracing the influences on Durkheim to his predecessor August Comte and the German scholars of experimental psychology, it is possible to understand how Durkheim came to the conclusion that society is greater than the individual, and how his idea of a collective social conscience can be linked to the achievement of organic solidarity in a modern society. According to Stones (2008) it was the German scholars who in laying the empirical foundations of experimental psychology by emphasizing the importance of a collective moral life had such a profound effect on Durkheim. Their understanding was that rules, customs and morality, and not reason and individual interests, were the basis of social life. The influence of August Comte who had defined society as a living organism was also apparent in the work of the German Schaffle, who’s organicist framework implied the unity or solidarity of the collective over the individual part (Thomson, 2002). According to Thomson (2002), Durkheim was able to adopt Schaffle’s views and crystallise them into a sociological analysis of contemporary society. Durkheim believed that although sociologists should emulate those psychologists who based their work on empirical evidence, psychology's focus on the individual failed to recognize that social phenomenon must be explained in terms of other social phenomena (Stones, 2008). In Durkheim’s formulation the individual is a theoretical construct quite different to actual individuals encountered in