Emile Durkheim 1858 – 1917
Emile Durkheim was a French sociologist and philosopher and one of the founders of the modern discipline of sociology. His Rules of Sociological Method established the autonomy of social facts as a domain of inquiry irreducible to individual psychology, while The Division of Labor in Society, Suicide, and The Elementary Forms of Religious Life developed wide-ranging analyses of solidarity, anomie, and the social origins of religion. He held the first chair of sociology in France, at the Sorbonne, and shaped a school of French social thought that included his nephew Marcel Mauss. He died of grief and exhaustion during the First World War.
Key facts
- Nationality
- French
- Era
- Contemporary
- Movements
- Continental, Positivism
Selected quotes
-
Attributed to Emile Durkheim:
“Society is not a mere sum of individuals; rather, the system formed by their association represents a specific reality which has its own characteristics.”
-
Attributed to Emile Durkheim:
“When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary; when mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.”
-
Attributed to Emile Durkheim:
“Religion is the system of symbols by means of which society becomes conscious of itself.”
-
Attributed to Emile Durkheim:
“Anomie is a state of normlessness, in which the individual is left without a moral compass.”
-
Attributed to Emile Durkheim:
“Man cannot become attached to higher aims and submit to a rule if he sees nothing above him to which he belongs.”