Emile Durkheim Quotes on Knowledge

Quotes

• “For if society lacks the unity that derives from the fact that the relationships between its parts are exactly regulated, that unity resulting from the harmonious articulation of its various functions assured by effective discipline and if, in addition, society lacks the unity based upon the commitment of men's wills to a common objective, then it is no more than a pile of sand that the least jolt or the slightest puff will suffice to scatter.”

  Émile Durkheim (1903/1961, p. 102); Quoted in: Kenneth Allan (2012). Explorations in Classical Sociological Theory: Seeing the Social World: Seeing the Social World p. 151

• “There is no sociology worthy of the name which does not possess a historical character.”

  Émile Durkheim, Debate on Explanation in History and Sociology (1908).

• “Sociology and philosophy (1911), D. Pocock, trans. (1974), p. 51.”

  Kant postulates God, since without this hypothesis morality is unintelligible. We postulate a society specifically distinct from individuals, since otherwise morality has no object and duty no roots.

• “As attributed in: Jeffrey Eisenach et al. (1993), Readings in renewing American civilization, p. 54”

  When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary. When mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.

• “This work had its origins in the question of the relations of the individual to social solidarity . Why does the individual, while becoming more autonomous, depend more upon society ? How can he be at once more individual and more solidary? Certainly, these two movements, contradictory as they appear, develop in parallel fashion. This is the problem we are raising. It appeared to us that what resolves this apparent antinomy is a transformation of social solidarity due to the steadily growing development of the division of labor .”

  Preface

• “The division of labour is not of recent origin, but it was only at the end of the eighteenth century that social cognizance was taken of the principle. though, until then, unwitting submission had been rendered to it. To be sure, several thinkers from earliest times saw its importance; but Adam Smith was the first to attempt a theory of it. Moreover, he adopted this phrase that social science later lent to biology .”

  p. 39; Lead paragraph

• “p. 39; Lead paragraph”

  The division of labour is not of recent origin, but it was only at the end of the eighteenth century that social cognizance was taken of the principle. though, until then, unwitting submission had been rendered to it. To be sure, several thinkers from earliest times saw its importance; but Adam Smith was the first to attempt a theory of it. Moreover, he adopted this phrase that social science late