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Emile Durkheim His Life and Work a Historical and Critical Study Steven Lukes This study of Durkheim seeks to help the reader to achieve a historical understanding of his ideas and to form critical judgements about their value. To some extent these two aims are contradictory. On the one hand, one seeks to understand: what did Durkheim really mean, how did he see the world, how did his ideas relate to one another and how did they develop, how did they relate to their biographical and his torical context, how were they received, what influence did they have and to what criticisms were they subjected, what was it like not to make certain distinctions, not to see certain errors, of fact or of logic, not to know what has subsequently become known? On the other hand, one seeks to assess: how valuable and how valid are the ideas, to what fruitful insights and explanations do they lead, how do they stand up to analysis and to the evidence, what is their present value? Yet it seems that it is only by inducing oneself not to see cer tain things that one can achieve a sympathetic understanding and only by seeing them that one can make a critical assess ment. The only solution is to pursue both aims—seeing and not seeing—simultaneously. More particularly, this book has the primary object of achieving that sympathetic understand ing without which no adequate critical assessment is possible. It is a study in intellectual history which is also intended as a contribution to sociological theory. —from the Introduction ISBN 0-06 012727-9 STEVEN LUKES ÉMILE DURKHEIM His Life and Work A HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL STUDY Harper & Row, Publishers NEW YORK, EVANSTON, SAN FRANCISCO, LONDON EMILE DURKHEIM: ms life and work. Copyright © 1972 by Steven Lukes. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written per mission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address Harper it Row, Publishers, Inc., 10 East 53rd Street, New York, N.Y. 10022. FIRST U.S. EDITION STANDARD BOOK NUMBER: 06-012727-9 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 75-156534 EMILE DURKHEIM His Life and Work Preface I wish to express particular thanks to the following persons for their generous and valuable help in the course of my research: M. le Doyen Georges Davy, MM. les Professeurs Armand Cuvillier, Raymond Aron and Claude Lévi-Strauss, M. Raymond Lenoir, MM. Henri Durkheim, Étienne Halphen and Pierre Mauss, Mme J. S. Kennedy (née Raphael), Mlle Jeanne Bouglé, Mlle Marcelle Fauconnet, Mme Y. Halbwachs, the late Mme H. Lévy-Bruhl, and Mlle Humbert, the extremely kind librarian of the Bibliothèque Victor Cousin. I am also very grateful for their comments, suggestions and criticisms to my wife and to Reinhard Bendix, Sir Isaiah Berlin, Tom Bottomore, Terry Clark, Jean Floud, Tony Giddens, Louis Greenberg, Jack Hayward, Robin Horton, Rodney Needham, John Peel, Melvin Richter, Alan Ryan, Raphael Samuel, Andrew Scull, Bryan Wilson and Theodore Zeldin. For secre tarial help, I must thank Caroline Cumberbatch, Phyllis Jayakar and Pat Lloyd. I must also thank Deborah Thompson for do ing the index. Above all, I am grateful for the scrupulous and inspiring advice of Sir Edward Evans-Pritchard, a not uncritical admirer of Durkheim. Among the unpublished sources I have used are letters from Durkheim to Xavier Léon and Octave Flamelin (at the Bibliothèque Victor Cousin, MS nos. 361 and 357), to Louis Havet and François Simiand (at the Bibliothèque Nationale, côtes N.A.F. 24493(2) and N.A.F. 12.855) and to Célestin Bouglé (made available by Mlle Bouglé) ; Durkheim’s personal dossiers at the Archives Nationales (F17 25768), and at the University of Bordeaux (provided by M. le Professeur René Lacroze); the manuscripts made available to me by M. Raymond Lenoir (see Chapter 6); and the lecture-notes provided by M. Davy taken at Durkheim’s lectures by himself and M. Cuvillier (see Chapter 21). Unfortunately, it is almost X Preface certain that all Durkheim’s papers and remaining unpublished manuscripts were destroyed by the Germans during the Occu pation. I have throughout used the earliest editions of Durkheim’s works that were not subsequently modified, except where otherwise indicated. I have consistently given references both to the original text and to the English translation, where available, but the generally, and alarmingly, poor quality of the latter (with some notable exceptions) has made re-translations necessary in very many cases, indicated by the addition of ‘(S.L.)’. Most of the Introduction has appeared as an article entitled ‘Prolegomena to the Interpretation of Durkheim’ in the Archives européennes de sociologie (European Journal of Sociology), xii, 2, 1971 ; and a small part of Chapter 17 in a short article on Durkheim’s ‘Individualism and the Intellectuals’ in Political Studies, xvn, 1, 1969. List of Abbreviations AFLB Annales de la Faculté des Lettres de Bordeaux AJS American Journal of Sociology AnS Annales sociologiques APDSJ Archives de philosophie du droit et de sociologie juridique AS Année sociologique ASR American Sociological Review BJS British Journal of Sociology BSFP Bulletin de la Société française de philosophie CIS Cahiers internationaux de sociologie EJS European Journal of Sociology {Archives européennes de sociologie') IESS International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (New York, 1968) JSSR Journal for the S cientifc Study of Religions KZS Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie MF Mercure de France NC Notes critiques - sciences sociales PSQ. Political Science Quarterly RB Revue bleue REP Revue d'économie politique RFS Revue française de sociologie RIE Revue internationale de l'enseignement Ri It S Rivista italiana di sociologia RIS Revue internationale de sociologie RMM Revue de métaphysique et de morale RNS Revue néo-scolastique RP Revue philosophique RS La riforma sociale RSH Revue de synthèse historique SP Sociological Papers SR Sociological Review SRch Social Research xi Contents Preface lx List of Abbreviations xi Introduction 1 Concepts 4 Dichotomies 16 Arguments JO Durkheim’s Style 34 part one: youth: 1858-87 1. Childhood 39 2. The École Normale Supérieure 44 Renouvier and Boutroux 5 4 Fustel de Coulanges 5 8 3. The New Science of Sociology 66 Comte, Taine and Renan 67 Durkheim’s Scientific Rationalism 72 Theory and Practice 76 Durkheim’s ‘Social Realism’ 79 4. Visit to Germany 86 part two: bordeaux: 1887-1902 5. Durkheim at Bordeaux 99 6. The Theory and Practice of Education 109 Moral Education I IO Intellectual Education 119 Educational Psychology: The History of Educational Theories 121 Rousseau’s Émile and Durkheim’s View of Human Nature 125 Durkheim’s Sociology of Education 128 v vi Contents ■j. Social Solidarity and the Division of Labour 137 Social Solidarity I 3 8 Comte, Spencer and Tonnies 14° Mechanical and Organic Solidarity 147 The Theory of Social Change 167 Abnormal Forms 172 8. The Family and Kinship 179 The History of the Family 182 The Conjugal Family 184 Incest 187 Section Systems 189 9. Suicide 191 The Theme of Social Dissolution 195 The Explanandum 199 Rejected Explanations 202 The Explanation Offered 204 The Nature of the Explanation 213 Diagnosis and Remedy 222 10. The Method and Subject-Matter of Sociology 226 11. The Sociology of Religion - I 237 12. The History of Socialism 245 13. The Sociology of Law and Politics 255 The Evolution of Punishment 257 Domestic and Occupational Ethics 265 Civic Ethics: The State, Democracy and Political Obligation 268 Homicide, Property and Contract 275 14. The History of Sociology 277 Montesquieu 279 Rousseau 282 15. The Année sociologique 289 16. The Reception of Durkheim’s Ideas 296 ‘The Division of Labour’ 296 The Debate with Tarde 302 Other Criticisms 313