Contributions to L'Année Sociologique

Emile Durkheim

• Publisher: Free Press
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9780684863900
• eBook ISBN: 9781439119891
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

These reviews, notices, and introductory sections by a major figure in intellectual history represent more than a decade of effort to define and clarify a new form of scientific investigation. Together, they offer a suggestive new picture of Emile Durkheim as "Scholarch" of the "French School" and master of a whole school of social thought. 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.

Durkheim’s Contributions

Preface
Prefaces to L’Année Sociologique

Preface to L’Année Sociologique, 1898

L’Année Sociologique is not solely aimed or even chiefly intended to provide an annual index of current literature that is properly sociological. Thus circumscribed, the task would be too restricted and of little use, for works of this type are still too few to justify the need for special bibliographical material. But what the sociologists are urgently in need of, we believe, is to be regularly informed of the investigations being performed in the special sciences: history of law, customs, religion, moral statistics, economics, and so on, for this is where the materials are to be found with which sociology must be constructed. To answer such a need is the primary goal of the present publication.

It appeared to us that, in the present state of science, this was the best way to hasten its progress. Indeed, the types of learning a sociologist must have acquired, if he is not to indulge in a vain exercise in dialectics, are so extensive and varied, and the facts so numerous and scattered about so widely that it is difficult to find them, that we always run the risk of overlooking the essentials. It is therefore desirable that preliminary investigation put them at the disposal of those who are interested. To be sure, as sociology becomes more specialized, it will be easier for each scientist to acquire the competence and erudition for handling the particular problems to which he devotes his attention. But such an eventuality is far from being realized. There are still too many sociologists who pontificate daily about the law, ethics, and religion with haphazard information or even mere insights from natural philosophy, seemingly unaware that a considerable number of documents on such points have been assembled by historical and ethnographic schools in Germany and England. It is not a wasted effort to proceed periodically to an inventory of all such resources by indicating what profit sociology can reap in so doing. Even over and above the views and investigations they can suggest, are not such methodical analyses of works of a special nature but mutually complementary better able to give a more vivid impression and even a truer notion of collective reality than the ordinary generalizations found in treatises on social philosophy? Therefore, we hope to succeed in interesting not only professional sociologists but all the enlightened readers whom such problems preoccupy. It is important, in fact, that the public be more keenly aware of the preparation that is necessary in order to tackle these studies, so that it may become less complacent about facile constructions, and more demanding about the nature of evidence and inquiries.

Our enterprise can be useful in still another way: it can help bring closer to sociology certain special sciences that hold themselves aloof, to our mutual detriment.

It is especially history that we have in mind when speaking in that vein. Even today, historians who take an interest in the investigations of sociologists and feel that such matters concern them are rare. The overgeneralized nature and inadequate documentation of our theories cause them to be regarded as negligible; they are credited with having little more than a certain philosophical importance. And yet, history can be a science only insofar as it explains, and it can only explain when making comparisons. Otherwise, even simple description is all but impossible. The description of a unique phenomenon is defective because our view of it is not clear. That is why Fustel de Coulanges, in spite of his profound understanding of historical matters, was mistaken about the nature of the gens when he viewed it merely as a vast family of agnates, simply because he was unaware of the ethnographic analogies of this family type. The true nature of the Roman sacer is very difficult to perceive and understand if we do not compare it with the Polynesian taboo. The examples we could give are countless. It will constitute a service to the cause of history if we can induce the historian to transcend his ordinary point of view, to broaden his outlook beyond the country and period he proposes to make his special study, and to concern himself with the general problems raised by the particular phenomena he investigates.

Once subject to comparison, history does not become distinctly different from sociology. Put another way, not only is sociology unable to dispense with history, but it needs historians who are at the same time sociologists. So long as sociology is to be presented as alien to the field of history, thereby depriving it of phenomena which concern it, the contributions it can make can only be quite meager. Out of touch in unaccustomed surroundings, it is almost inevitable that there will be a failure to notice or to see clearly or perceptively enough matters that should be in its best interest to investigate closely. The historian alone is familiar enough with history to utilize it with assurance. Accordingly, far from being antagonistic, these two disciplines naturally tend to blend with each other, and every trend anticipates and calls for a merger into a common discipline wherein the elements of both disciplines will be reencountered, combined, and united. It appears likewise impossible that he whose role it is to discover the facts should be unaware of the type of comparison they invite, and that he who compares should be unaware of the method of their discovery. To create historians who know how to view historical phenomena as sociologists, or sociologists who fully grasp historical technique—such is the goal that must be sought on both sides. Under such circumstances, the explanatory formulations of science can be progressively extended to all the complexities of phenomena instead of merely reproducing them in generalized outline form, and at the same time can become meaningful, since they will be used to solve the most serious problems with which humanity is faced. Fustel de Counanges liked to repeat that true sociology is history; nothing is more indisputable, provided that history be fashioned sociologically.

In order to obtain such a result, sociologists must turn spontaneously to history, get in touch with it, show it what use can be made of the materials it accumulates, and become imbued with its spirit and penetrate it with theirs. That is what we have tried to do in the reviews that will follow. When it becomes clear that sociology in no way implies a disdain for facts, that it does not even recoil from particulars, but that phenomena are intellectually significant only when grouped according to types and to laws, we will doubtless be more conscious of the possibility and the need of a new conception whereby a sense of historical reality, in the most concrete sense, will not exclude that element of methodical search for analogies that is natural to all science. If L’Année sociologique could make its contribution, however slight, by turning good minds in this direction, we would feel no remorse over our difficulties.*

Our objective thus defined, the outlines of our publication will be determined accordingly.

If our main purpose is to assemble the materials essential for science, however, it appeared to us that it would be fitting to show by means of a few examples how such materials may be put to work. We have therefore reserved the first part of L’Année for Mémoires originaux. We do not require that the works we publish under this title conform to a predetermined formula; it is enough for us that they have a definite objective and that they be done methodically. While holding to this double condition, we in no way intend to exclude general sociology; we shall be able to assure ourselves of this farther on. It is a branch of sociology no less useful than the others, and, if it lends itself more readily to the abuse of generalization and to the fanciful, this is not a necessary condition of its nature. However, we admit that our efforts will tend to favor studies dealing with more restricted subjects and arising from the special branches of sociology. For, since general sociology can only be a synthesis of these particular sciences, since it can only consist of a comparison of their most general results, it is impossible for it to grow except to the extent to which they themselves have progressed. It is therefore especially necessary to apply oneself to their organization.

The second part of the work, and the most considerable, is devoted to analyses and to bibliographical notices. But since the field of sociology is still very indefinite, it behooved us, right from the start, to circumscribe the areas to which L’Année sociologique intends to contribute, in order to prevent arbitrary choices and exclusions. In one sense, everything historical is sociological. In another sense, philosophical speculations on ethics, law, and religion cannot fail to be of interest to sociologists. It was therefore necessary to set these two limits.

As far as philosophy is concerned, the limit was easily determined. All doctrines concerned with customs, law, and religious beliefs interest us, provided they admit the postulate that is the essential element of all sociology—namely, the existence of laws that deliberation, logically employed, helps discover. We do not mean that we must deny every contingency in order to be sociologists; sociology, like the other positive sciences, does not have to confront this metaphysical problem. It simply assumes that social phenomena are tied in with scientific investigation pursuant to intelligible and accessible relationships; it does not have to account for systems that derive from contrary assumptions. The times have passed when to refute them could serve a useful purpose. However undeveloped our science may be, it has produced sufficient results to warrant its rights to exist.

As for history, the line of demarcation is more fluid. Even the way in which it is fixed can be merely tentative, and probably must be replaced in ways commensurate with the progress made by the science itself. However, at least one rule may be stated. The only facts we have to retain in these pages are those that appear to be scientifically compatible in the foreseeable future, that is, those that can invite comparisons. This standard practice suffices to eliminate works where the roles of historical personalities (legislators, statesmen, generals, prophets, innovators of all types) are the principal or exclusive object of research. We shall say as much for works that are uniquely concerned with retracing, in chronological order, the sequence of events that constitute the apparent history of a certain society (dynastic successions, wars, negotiations, parliamentary histories). In a word, everything that is biography, whether of individuals or collectivities, is of no use to the sociologist. It is in the same sense that the biologist does not pay much attention to the extraneous history of the vicissitudes that befall each individual organism in the course of its existence. No one can state that such varied peculiarities will always be scientifically intractable, but the time when it may be possible to attempt even a partial explanation of them is so remote that it is a wasted effort to apply oneself in that way. As a matter of fact, what is called a scientific phenomenon is quite simply a phenomenon that has scientifically come of age. The factors that determine this maturity vary according to whether the science is more or less developed. This is what explains why all phenomena are not of this nature at a given moment, and why the scientist is obliged to choose and to separate those that appear useful for him to observe.

With the subject matter of our reviews defined in this way, it behooved us to construct a critical procedure that might be in keeping with the goal we were seeking. We could not adhere to the current idea that makes the critic a sort of judge who passes sentence and rates talent. Posterity alone is competent to proceed with such classifications, which, besides, are of no use to science. Our role must be to extract the objective materials from the works we are studying, namely suggestive phenomena and promising views, whether they be interesting for their intrinsic value or for the discussions they elicit. The critic must become his author’s collaborator, for however slight a book’s substantive value, it is a corresponding gain for science. This collaborative sharing is rendered still more important and necessary by the nature of works of which we have to speak. As many among them are not explicitly sociological, we were not able to settle for making an inventory of their contents, to pass along in a crude form, as it were, the subject matter they contain; it was necessary for us to submit them, insofar as possible, to a preliminary elaboration, which would indicate to the reader what particulars emerge for the sociologist. In order that such indications might be apparent, all the analyses of works that refer to the same problem have been grouped together so as to complement each other and to provide mutual clarification. Such approximations already, in their own right, amount to comparisons that may be useful.

Such is our program. In order to carry it out, a certain number of workers have joined forces after having come to an understanding on the rules that have just been explicated. And perhaps this instinctive meeting of minds with a view to joint enterprise is a phenomenon that is not without importance. Until now, sociology has generally remained an eminently personal undertaking; doctrines depended closely on the personality of the scholar and could not be disassociated from it. Yet science, since it is objective, is essentially an impersonal matter and can develop only from collective effort. For this reason alone, and independently of the useful results that it can have, our attempt deserves, we believe, to be welcomed with interest by all those who are committed to helping sociology grow out of its philosophical phase and take its rightful place among the sciences.* (Année sociologique, 1, 1898, pp. i-vii; trans. J. French)

We beg the reader, moreover, not to consider this first try as an indication of what we would choose to do. If the reader realizes the difficulties that such an enterprise presented, he will not be disinclined to pardon some inevitable fumbles.

Preface to L’Année Sociologique, 1899

We stated our program last year, so we do not feel it is necessary to repeat it. The very favorable response our attempt elicited has, moreover, proved that we were quite well understood.

There are, however, a few points about which it may be helpful to give fuller explanation.

One may feel free to reproach us either for not being complete enough, or for being too much so, and for overstepping the bounds of sociology. When, as so often happens, sociology is perceived as merely a purely philosophical discipline, a metaphysical branch of the social sciences, the very precise works we analyze may seem out of place. But our principal goal is to counter by being precise, as a way of interpreting and of practicing sociology. It is not that we mean to deny the existence of a general sociology that would be like the philosophical part of our science; we are even willing to acknowledge that sociology, in its earliest stages, was not able and not supposed to have any other characteristic. But the time has come for it to depart from such generalities and to become specialized. It will not, thereby, be mistaken for the special techniques in existence for a long time. Or, at least, it will be mistaken for them only after having changed them, for it cannot fail to introduce a sense of novelty. To begin with, it involves the notion of categories and of laws—which is still too often lacking. Indeed, many of those other disciplines are involved with literature and with erudition rather than with science; above all, they aim to relate and to describe particular events rather than to constitute types and species and to establish relationships. But what sociology brings with it is a sense that there exists a close relationship among all those phenomena of such diversity, phenomena that until now have been studied by specialists independent of one another. Not only are such studies so interdependent that they cannot be understood if isolated from one another, but they are, basically, of similar nature; they are varied manifestations of a same reality, which is social reality. That is why not only must the jurist keep up to date in his knowledge of religions, the economist up to date in his knowledge about life styles, and so on; since all these different disciplines are involved with phenomena of the same type, they must use the same method.

The basic idea behind this approach is that religious, juridical, ethical, and economic phenomena must all be treated in conformity with their nature, that is, as social phenomena. Whether for the purpose of describing or explaining them, they must be tied in with a specific social milieu, with a definite type of society. It is in the characteristics that make up this type that we must look for the determining causes of the phenomenon under consideration. Most of these sciences are still impervious to this point of view. The science of religions speaks mostly in generalities of beliefs and of reli...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• About the Contributors
• Periodicals Used by Durkheim as Sources of Reviews in L’Année
• Preface
• Editor’s Introduction
• Durkheim’s Contributions
• List of Durkheim’s Contributions Included
• Appendix A: History of the Durkheimian School as Revealed through Publications of Periodicals (in Chronological Order)
• Appendix B: Members of the Durkheimian School and Their Contributions to L’Année
• Appendix C: Classification of the Members of the Durkheimian School
• Name Index
• Subject Index