Emile Durkheim: A Biography

A Biography Of Emile Durkheim

Emile Durkheim (1858 -- 1917) is best known as a founder of the discipline of sociology, together with Karl Marx and Max Weber. I studied Durkheim briefly in college but did not return to him in the long intervening years. I welcomed the opportunity to renew my acquaintance in this biography, "Emile Durkheim" (2013) by Marcel Fournier, Professor of Sociology at the University of Montreal. Published in French in 2007, the book has been ably translated by David Macy. Fournier has written extensively on Durkheim and on Durkheim's nephew Marcel Mauss, an important figure in his own right, who collaborated frequently with Durkheim and who plays a large role in this study.

Fournier's "Durkheim" is a lengthy, detailed, and difficult book consisting of over 730 pages of text together with extensive endnotes, a long bibliography, and an index. The book tells the story of Durkheim's life, but it is at least equally an exposition of his thought. The book discusses the content of Durkheim's major works, "The Division of Labor in Society",(1893), "Suicide" (1897), and "The Elementary Forms of Religious Life" (1912) in great detail. Fournier gives the same kind of thorough attention to Durkheim's other books, to many of his articles, and to the texts of his lectures. He follows his exposition of Durkeheim's writings with a discussion of criticisms and comments that appeared at the time and of Durkheim's responses. Thus the book constitutes a detailed consideration of Durkheim's thought.

The book also emphasizes the collaborative nature of Durkheim's project to establish a scientifically-based, autonomous study of society. Besides his own extensive writings, Durkheim gathered together a group of collaborators, including Marcel Mauss, who worked to publish massive volumes called "L'Annee Sociologique". Each volume consisted of several hundred pages of articles and reviews which explained progress in Durkheim-influenced forms of social science with concentration on law, ethics, and, increasingly, religion. As an Amazon reviewer, I was interested in learning of the centrality of detailed, extensive book reviews to the "L'Annee Sociologique" project, which demanded a great deal of Durkheim's attention over the years. Fournier offers brief biographies of the contributors to "L'Annee" together with detailed consideration of the contents of each volume.

The son of a long line of Rabbis, Durkheim showed great intellectual talent at a young age. He quickly became highly secularized and nonreligious. The nature of religion and its pervasive influence in culture and morality remained an important theme in Durkheim's work. Fournier describes the overriding themes of Durkheim's studies as, broadly, understanding the relationship between the individual and society and "the (sociological) study of moral facts and the development of a secular morality." (p,719)

A major portion of the book is devoted to explaining Durkheim's goal in establishing sociology as an independent, autonomous discipline. Durkheim was originally trained as a philosopher. Throughout this book, it seemed to me that Durkheim had a close relationship to this discipline even while attempting to establish sociology on a scientific basis. Besides its discussion of Durkheim's sociology and philosophy, Fournier discusses the status of related disciplines that greatly influenced Durkheim, including psychology, history, geography, economics, and anthropology. Durkheim saw himself as a scientist first and as a philosophical French rationalist in the tradition established by Descartes. Fournier's book also draws fascinating comparisons and contrasts between Durkheim's work and that of the American pragmatists, especially William James in the "Varieties of Religious Experience" and of the French philosopher Henri Bergson, whose intuitionism was markedly at odds with Durkheim's thinking.

Durkheim saw his work in sociology as closely related to pedagogy and to the nature of education. Fournier describes how Durkheim understood the French educational system and its history and how Durkheim came to understand the purpose and manner of pursuit of intellectual endeavor.

Fournier's book draws heavily on history. It shows the impact of the 1870 Franco-Prussian War on Durkheim's thought. The book also devotes substantial attention to the Dreyfuss Affair in which Durkheim was one of a number of French intellectuals who courageously spoke out against the unjust, anti-Semitic tinged prosecution. Finally, the book covers WW I, and Durkheim's role in it. The outbreak of the War, in this book, seems to overshadow much of what preceeded it. Durkheim's beloved son died on the front, a tragedy from which Durkheim never recovered. Durkheim still worked tirelessly in the war effort by producing essays and historical studies and "propaganda" for neutral nations and for his fellow Frenchmen explaining the outbreak for the war and the necessity for the defeat of Germany. Together with his role in the Dreyfuss Affair, Durkheim's WW I activities in the last three years of his life constitute the extent of his active political activity.

Fournier's book is not for the casual reader. It teaches a great deal about Durkheim, about sociology, the life of the mind, the intellectual milieu of fin-de-siecle Europe, and the impact of WW I. It is a study in its own right of religion and secularism. I was especially interested in thinking about Durkheim's study of religion and society in light of William James' highly individualistic, personalized approach to religion, to which Durkheim's study seems opposed. I was grateful that this book was made available through the Amazon Vine program. It gave me the opportunity that I otherwise would not have had to think again about Emile Durkheim.