Emile Durkheim

On Suicide (1897) by Emile Durkheim is a groundbreaking book in the field of sociology. Traditionally, suicide was thought to be a matter of purely individual despair, but Durkheim recognised that the phenomenon had a social dimension. He believed that if anything can explain how individuals relate to society, then it is suicide. Why does it happen? What goes wrong?...

In this influential work, first published in English in 1963, Durkheim and Mauss claim that the individual mind is capable of classification and they seek the origin of the 'classificatory function' in society. On the basis of an intensive examination of forms and principles of symbolic classification reported from the Australian aborigines, the Zuni and traditional China, they try to...

Émile Durkheim is one of the founding fathers of sociology, and Professional Ethics and Civic Morals is one of his most neglected yet insightful works. Durkheim's view that the instability of industrial society was connected to the decline of religion and his characterisation of the state as the ultimate moral force in society reveal his lifelong engagement with the relationship...

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...