Emile Durkheim

Den sociologiske metodes regler (Les règles de la méthode sociologique) udkom første gang i 1895 og hører - bl.a. sammen med andre af Émile Durkheims værker - til blandt de grundlæggende og uomgængelige klassikere inden for samfundsvidenskaben. Med bogen forsøger Durkheim at formulere et antal egentlige metodeprincipper, som ifølge ham bør iagttages ved studiet af den slags samfundsmæssige fænomener, han kalder ’sociale kendsgerninger’. Hermed mener han de overindividuelle sociale lovmæssigheder og funktionssammenhænge som konstituerer et samfund og gør det til andet og mere end summen af dets borgere. Durkheim nøjes selvfølgelig ikke med alene at fremlægge sine teoretiske overvejelser i forbindelse med formuleringen af reglerne. Bogen igennem giver han konkrete eksempler på deres anvendelse ved observation og analyse af sociale fænomener som fx arbejdsdeling, retsforhold, kriminalitet og familiemæssige forhold. Den sociologiske metodes regler er forsynet med en introduktion af lektor Gorm Harste, Institut for Statskundskab, Århus Universitet. Oversat fra fransk efter Les Règles de la méthode sociologique af Esbern Krause-Jensen.

Moving back and forth between the history of philosophy and the contributions of philosophers in his own day, Durkheim takes up topics as diverse as philosophical psychology, logic, ethics, and metaphysics, and seeks to articulate a unified philosophical position. Remarkably, in these lectures, given more than a decade before the publication of his groundbreaking book, The Division of Labour in Society (1893), the 'social realism' that is so characteristic of his later work - where he insists, famously, that social facts cannot be reduced to psychological or economic ones, and that such facts constrain human action in important ways - is totally absent in these early lectures. For this reason, they will be of special interest to students of the history of the social sciences, for they shed important light on the course of Durkheim's intellectual development.

There would be no need for sociology if everyone understood the social frameworks within which we operate. That we do have a connection to the larger picture is largely thanks to the pioneering thinker Émile Durkheim. He recognized that, if anything can explain how we as individuals relate to society, then it is suicide: Why does it happen? What goes wrong? Why is it more common in some places than others? In seeking answers to these questions, Durkheim wrote a work that has fascinated, challenged and informed its readers for over a hundred years. Far-sighted and trail-blazing in its conclusions, Suicide makes an immense contribution to our understanding to what must surely be one of the least understandable of acts. A brilliant study, it is regarded as one of the most important books Durkheim ever wrote.

There would be no need for sociology if everyone understood the social frameworks within which we operate. That we do have a connection to the larger picture is largely thanks to the pioneering thinker mile Durkheim. He recognized that, if anything can explain how we as individuals relate to society, then it is suicide: Why does it happen? What goes wrong? Why is it more common in some places than others? In seeking answers to these questions, Durkheim wrote a work that has fascinated, challenged and informed its readers for over a hundred years. Far-sighted and trail-blazing in its conclusions, Suicide makes an immense contribution to our understanding to what must surely be one of the least understandable of acts. A brilliant study, it is regarded as one of the most important books Durkheim ever wrote.

For fifteen years, Emile Durkheim worked on the journal L'Annee Sociologique—selecting, editing, writing, and shaping the goals and methods of the "French School" of sociology. Now, Durkheim's own contributions to L'Annee are available in English. Classified and explained by Durkheim scholar Yash Nandan, this useful collection clarifies the role of L'Annee Sociologique in the development of scientific sociology; the position of L'Annee in the body of Durkheim's own work and the development of Durkheim's ideas; the importance and function of Durkheim's categories of sociological data; Durkheim's view of contemporaries, including Simmel, Westermarck, Tarde, Glotz, and Steinmetz; the exchange of ideas between historians and the L'Annee group; and the reasons for L'Annee's reputation as a unique publication in the history of sociology. Professor Nandan has organized this material according to Durkheim's own classification system, with major sections on the concepts and methodologies of general, juridic, and moral sociology, criminal sociology, and the statistics on morals. Subdivisions treat issues in law, suicide, social, political, and domestic organization, juridic and moral systems, the social contexts of crime, the sociology of knowledge, political sociology, social history, and historical sociology.

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A classic book about the phenomenon of suicide and its social causes written by one of the world’s most influential sociologists. Emile Durkheim’s Suicide addresses the phenomenon of suicide and its social causes. Written by one of the world’s most influential sociologists, this classic argues that suicide primarily results from a lack of integration of the individual into society. Suicide provides readers with an understanding of the impetus for suicide and its psychological impact on the victim, family, and society.

Ranging from Durkheim's original lecture in sociology to an excerpt from the work incomplete at his death, these selections illuminate his multiple approaches to the crucial concept of social solidarity and the study of institutions as diverse as the law, morality, and the family. Durkheim's focus on social solidarity convinced him that sociology must investigate the way that individual behavior itself is the product of social forces. As these writings make clear, Durkheim pursued his powerful model of sociology through many fields, eventually synthesizing both materialist and idealist viewpoints into his functionalist model of society.

This volume brings together a comprehensive selection of mile Durkheim's writings on religion. Besides helping to establish the discipline of sociology in France, Durkheim is widely recognized as one of the founding figures in the modern study of religion. Included are important sections of The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912), some of Durkheim's early reviews, articles, and extracts from books. The volume also contains comprehensive bibliographies, and early reviews of Durkheim's work on religion by such writers as van Gennep, Goldenwieser, Stanner, and the French sociologist Gaston Richard.

Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) was one of the founders of modern sociology. Ethics and the Sociology of Morals (La science positive de la morale en Allemagne) laid the foundation for Durkheim's future work. More than a review of current thought, it was a proclamation that ethics needed to be liberated from its philosophical bondage and developed as a distinct branch of sociology. Written when Durkheim was charting the course of his own research, it provides a unique key to the interpretation of his earlier work and presents a number of points of Durkheim's ethical theory which are of considerable interest in light of current ethical theory. This volume makes available in English a crucial essay by a master of social thought.

"Särskilt inom den franska sociologen har självmordet varit ett ofta behandlat ämne. Höjdpunkten av den sociologiska teoriens strävanden utgör Durkheims berömda verk Le Suicide. Sannolikt har detta mer än något annat arbete bidragit att skapa de moderna föreställningarna om självmordets sociala innebörd. Durkheim avvisar i ett par korta kapitel uppfattningen att självmordet väsentligen skulle vara

Selections from Durkheim's writings focus on the nature of his conception of society and its moral context

This is the only collection of Durkheim’s writings to draw upon the whole body of his work. Many of the texts in the book are here translated for the first time. Dr Giddens takes his selections from a wide variety of sources and includes a number of items from untranslated writings in the Revue Philosophique, Annee Sociologique and from L’evolution p'edagogue en France. Selections from previously translated writings have been checked against the originals and amended or re-translated where necessary. Dr Giddens arranges his selections thematically rather than chronologically. However, extracts from all phases of Durkheim’s intellectual career are represented, giving the date of their first publication, which makes the evolution of his thought easily traceable. In his introduction Dr Giddens discusses phases in the interpretation of Durkheim’s thought, as well as the main themes in his work, with an analysis of the effects of his thinking on modern sociology. The book is for students at any level taking courses in sociology, social anthropology and social theory, for whom Durkheim is one of the major writers studied.

Montesquieu & Rousseau provides, for the first time in English, two essays by Emile Durkheim on his chief eighteenth-century predecessors in the main stream of Western thought. Durkheim recognized that Montesquieu had laid down the principles of sociology long before that young science had a name and that Rousseau, too, spoke as a sociologist in The Social Contract. With his characteristic blend of reason and fervor, he enlarged upon these forerunners to create the fundamental ideas of modern sociology. The essays are valuable for what they tell us of Montesquieu and Rousseau. They are doubly important to readers who are directly concerned with political philosophy and social science. And, as Henri Peyre points out in the Foreword, they are an example of how the best minds of any age can serve each other.