Emile Durkheim
Emile Durkheim
David Émile Durkheimwas a French sociologist, social psychologist and philosopher. He formally established the academic discipline and—with Karl Marx and Max Weber—is commonly cited as the principal architect of modern social science and father of sociology...
ProfessionTeacher
Date of Birth15 April 1858
law unnecessary sufficient
When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary; when mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.
reality thinking association
Society is not a mere sum of individuals. Rather, the system formed by their association represents a specific reality which has its own characteristics... The group thinks, feels, and acts quite differently from the way in which its members would were they isolated. If, then, we begin with the individual, we shall be able to understand nothing of what takes place in the group.
strong ignorance risk
A mind that questions everything, unless strong enough to bear the weight of its ignorance, risks questioning itself and being engulfed in doubt.
crime
We do not condemn it because it is a crime, but it is a crime because we condemn it.
suicide suicidal giving
Each victim of suicide gives his act a personal stamp which expresses his temperament, the special conditions in which he is involved, and which, consequently, cannot be explained by the social and general causes of the phenomenon.
reality practice criticism
Sociological method as we practice it rests wholly on the basic principle that social facts must be studied as things, that is, as realities external to the individual. There is no principle for which we have received more criticism; but none is more fundamental. Indubitably for sociology to be possible, it must above all have an object all its own. It must take cognizance of a reality which is not in the domain of other sciences... there can be no sociology unless societies exist, and that societies cannot exist if there are only individuals.
mind environment social
Our whole social environment seems to us to be filled with forces which really exist only in our own minds.
suicide sadness people
Melancholy suicide. —This is connected with a general state of extreme depression and exaggerated sadness, causing the patient no longer to realize sanely the bonds which connect him with people and things about him. Pleasures no longer attract;
religious reality representation
Religious representations are collective representations which express collective realities.
taken character sadness
Man could not live if he were entirely impervious to sadness. Many sorrows can be endured only by being embraced, and the pleasure taken in them naturally has a somewhat melancholy character.
cheerful morality found
Too cheerful a morality is a loose morality; it is appropriate only to decadent peoples and is found only among them.
feelings variables limits
It is not human nature which can assign the variable limits necessary to our needs. They are thus unlimited so far as they depend on the individual alone. Irrespective of any external regulatory force, our capacity for feeling is in itself an insatiable and bottomless abyss.
feelings capacity force
Irrespective of any external, regulatory force, our capacity for feeling is in itself an insatiable and bottomless abyss.
christian country thinking
The Christian conceives of his abode on Earth in no more delightful colors than the Jainist sectarian. He sees in it only a time of sad trial; he also thinks that his true country is not of this world.