Emile Durkheim, Research Paper Example

Durkhiem’s Validation of Sociology

Émile Durkheim established and taught the first sociology course in 1887 at the University of Bordeaux in France. Immediately, Durkheim validated sociology as a distinct academic discipline. Until he came along, sociological concerns had not been studied empirically. Durkheim, from the beginning of his tenure in Bordeaux, spoke of sociology as a thing that was “public, an educational discipline, a thing to be to be imparted rather than to be proselytized,” (Layne, 189) moving sociology from a disjointed set of social movements into a pubic enterprise. More or less, he advertised it to academia as a living thing and the thing that crowned all other sciences. His interests were in how the roles of individuals contributed to the well being of society as a whole. He concluded that none of us knows more than all of us do, and that all of us are greater than each of us are.

Durkheim distinguished sociology from other disciplines, such as psychology and philosophy. Essentially, he saw two intellectual currents emerging from philosophy. One of these was psychology, a pursuit that studied the individual, and the other was sociology, a pursuit that studied the individual in context with others. He made new claims about social structure that found acceptance in the academy as he lived and labored at a time when all of Europe began to witness forms of specialization occurring in most all fields. Durkheim set up sociology to be the thing that already had a relationship with the world but had not had an opportunity to be given to the world. Social facts, or corporate incidents that have existence apart from the things that individual people do, provide Durkheim with a means by which he could recognize phenomena that were complex and real.

Durkheim demonstrated the explanatory usefulness of sociology in his study of suicide. He came out as the first scientist to suggest that suicide, for the most part, is a sociological, not a psychological issue. His argument centered on the fact that many who commit suicide possess low social integration and low social regulation. He tested his belief against four pillars of society, namely, religion, education, family values, and politics. He concluded that because of looser social controls, for example, that Protestants are more likely to commit suicide than are Catholics. He studied marriage and the economy as associations by which his views about suicide could find further validation. Through his investigations of suicide, Durkheim created the term anomie to refer to a general lack of normalcy, or moral deterioration as a result of purposelessness and alienation. For his day, research into the socially unacceptable and morally reprehensible commission of suicide was innovative and bold indeed.

Durkheim’s aim was to study sociology by looking at large social processes and whole-scale institutions. He found labor to be influenced more by egoism than by altruism. He sought to discover the role that processes and institutions play in maintaining social equilibrium. His efforts brought sociology to the same tier of scientific influence enjoyed by the traditional, natural sciences.

Works Cited

Fernquist, Robert. “How do Durkheimian Variables Impact Variation in National Suicide Rates When Proxies for Depression and Alcoholism are Controlled?” Archives of Suicide Research  11 (2007).

Layne, Neville. “Emile Durkheim’s Inaugural Lecture at Bordeaux.” Sociological Inquiry 44, 3 (1974).