Émile Durkheim was a 19th century French psychologist, philosopher and sociologist. with KarlMarx and MaxWeber, composes the triad From classic thinkers of Sociology.
despite Auguste Comte having coined the term sociology and establishing the needs of a science that studied society, it was Durkheim who formulated the rules of the sociological method and emancipated sociology as an autonomous science. Durkheim was also the first professor to hold a chair in sociology at a university.
Biography
David Émile Durkheim he was born in Épinal, in France, on April 15, 1858, in a traditional family of rabbis. He studied at the Lycée Louis-Le-Grand and the Escola Normal Superior de Paris, traditional institutions. The formation of French institutions at the time was criticized by Durkheim, who later claimed that there was a very literary and unscientific formation in schools.i.
His studies included law and economics (his initial academic background), Fphilosophy (discipline he taught in French high schools),
natural sciences, mainly the biology of Herbert Spencer, a thinker who profoundly marked his studies in relation to biological models of sociological application, and psychology, through Wilhelm Wundt's Laboratory of Experimental Psychology.His varied studies induced Durkheim to look for joint biological and social models and also to weave a differentiated look at Anthropology. The set of factors resulted in the formulation of the social facts theory, which would assert the primacy of understanding general facts that mark societies (such as laws), which would be larger and more easily explained than individual psychological issues.
THE biggerambition (and later the greatest fait accompli) of the thinker at the time was to create a field of studies offully autonomous social sciences, which did not depend on the domains of other sciences, such as Biology and Psychology, and did not depend on the overly abstract models of Philosophy that Comte had bequeathed to sociological work.
At the age of 29, Durkheim joined the faculty of University of Bordeaux, as in charge of courses, creating and occupying the first chair of Sociology in higher education. From then on, the startofficial gives Sociology While subject and scienceautonomous, despite the first ideas and the name having emerged years before with the French philosopher Auguste Comte.
All the Durkheim's intellectual production, from 1887, he turned to the study of sociology and the understanding of what he called the social facts, which would be general laws that govern societies and give the scientist the key to sociological study.
In November 15, 1917, Durkheim died in the city of Paris after having supported intellectually and with strong appeal nationalist France in First World War.
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Read more: Part of the theory of Max Weber, another great name in sociology.
Influences
We can count several thinkers who influenced Durkheim in formulating the amount of his work. Two of the main minds that marked the beginnings of Durkheim's studies are the English anthropologist and biologist HerbertSpencer, one of the theorists of classical liberalism, and Alfred Espinas, biologist, philosopher and sociologist who studied Comte, who during a certain period of his life showed himself adept at positivism.
Durkheim criticized some ideas of Comte as for Sociology, which demonstrates the influences suffered by the thinker considered the creator of the sociological method by the one who is considered the “father” of Sociology (Comte). For Durkheim, despite the opposite pretension, the Comtian sociological model is too philosophical, as the basis of positivism and sociology is the law of the three states, which does not resort to a precise method of observation and rigorous study of a society.
Also access: A theory contemporary to Durkheim's
Rules of the sociological method
THE Sociologyas a science goodstructured, it must have its own method to ensure that it does not fall into the contradictions and hasty conclusions of common sense.
If there is a science of societies, it is to be hoped that it does not consist simply of a paraphrase of traditional prejudices, but make us see things differently from the way they look. vulgar; In fact, the object of any science is to make discoveries, and every discovery more or less baffles inherited opinions.ii.
If there is a science of society with a scientific status, it must start from a methodstrictthat prevents traditional interference. Previous models, such as Comte's, lead the sociologist to fall into a model of philosophical metaphysical deduction that, according to Durkheim, would be more useful to make a philosophy of history than to build a science of society. O sociologist must seek to understand the common facts of society, social facts, as objective “things”.
One of sociologist tasks it is, then, to understand those facts that organize the society of a certain place and a certain time, such as education. It should be borne in mind, however, that, despite the differences, there are organizational structures that govern these societies and shape them in a more or less similar way, that is, despite the differences of time and place, there are always common elements determined by social facts that enable the sociologist to trace a scientific method of Note.
You factssocial they are distinguished for "its exteriority in relation to individual consciences" and for the "coercive action that it exerts or is likely to exert on these same consciencesiii”. This means to say that social facts are greater than any individual consciousness and they create what the sociologist called collective consciousness.
There is no way, because of the coercive nature of social facts, consciousnesspsychologicalindividual (a person) act of free and spontaneous will, breaking social rules, without it not being accused or punished later, or not, at least, not being understood.
Important elements found in societies that act as analytical data for the sociologist are the forms of cohesion. These forms of cohesion outline the way in which society behaves, the type of Law and Justice exercised in that society, and the mode of solidarity that organizes such a society. There is also the determination of social division of labor, which is different in each type of society. The two main forms of cohesion are formed by:
mechanical solidarity: outlines the oldest and most rudimentary societies, without the influence of capitalism. Society as a whole is closed as an autonomous mechanism. there is here biggercohesionSocial and the absence of the social division of labor, which closes society and promotes mutual help among people. There is also a more primitive form of law that considers the unwanted social act a crime against the whole of society and that it must be exemplarily punished through public torture and punishment physicist.
organic solidarity: as an organism that needs several different parts and mechanisms to function, they are the most developed societies and under the influence of capitalism. There is the social division of labor and the social inequality, which closes groups in their interiors and promotes solidarity only among closed groups that see brotherhood only among themselves and not with others.
suicide
Durkheim understands that suicide it's a social fact present in all societies, with only varying numbers and types of suicide developed in different societies. He considers suicide as “every death that results directly or immediately from a positive or negative act performed by the victim.iv”
This means that the suicide is classified as such only when there is the intention of the suicide to cause his own death, leaving aside the accidental or reckless cases. There are three types of suicide that mark societies and vary according to each place and time. Are they:
selfish suicide: when the personal ego supersedes the social ego, and the individual does not support life and does not see, in society, reasons to stay alive.
altruistic suicide: when the social ego is bigger than the individual ego, and the subject ends his own life for an action greater than himself, for the benefit of society. Pilots are examples kamikaze of World War II, which crashed their own planes into targets.
anomic suicide: takes place situation of social anomie, that is, disorder and chaos. It usually happens in situations of crisis and war, in which people feel affected by anomie and see no sense in living that way or have their minds affected by chaos.
Books
Classical sociology was marked by many works published by Durkheim, such as:
Elements of Sociology (1889)
The Division of Social Work (1893)
The rules of sociological method (1895)
the suicide (1897)
The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912)
Education and Sociology (1922 – posthumous publication)
Sociology and Philosophy (1924 – posthumous publication)
the moral education (1925 – posthumous publication)
socialism (1928 – posthumous publication)
In 1898, the thinker founded L'Année Sociologique (The Sociological Annals), a journal of great historical importance for Sociology, because the first works in Classical Sociology of the French School of Sociology were published there.
Sentences
"If all hearts vibrate in unison, it is not because of a spontaneous and pre-established agreement; is that the same force moves them in the same direction. Each one is dragged by all."
"Religion is not just a system of ideas, it is above all a system of forces."
"A social fact is every way of acting, fixed or not, capable of exerting an external coercion on the individual; or else, that it is general in the extension of a given society, presenting its own existence, independent of the individual manifestations it may have."
"Society and each particular social environment determine the ideal that education achieves."
i GIANNOTTI, J. THE. Durkheim: life and work. In: DURKHEIM, E. the thinkers. São Paulo: Abril Cultural, 1983.
ii DURKHEIM, E. The rules of sociological method. Translated by Margarida Garrido Esteves. In: DURKHEIM, E. the thinkers. São Paulo: Abril Cultural, 1983, p. 73.
iii _____. The rules of sociological method. Translated by Margarida Garrido Esteves. In: DURKHEIM, E. the thinkers. São Paulo: Abril Cultural, 1983, p. 87.
iv _____. suicide. Translation by Luz Cary, Daisy Garrido and J. Vasconcelos Esteves. In: In: DURKHEIM, E. the thinkers. São Paulo: Abril Cultural, 1983, p. 166.
by Francisco Porfirio
Sociology Professor