HS201 - Durkheim

1) social statistics

- at each moment in history, individuals and groups are joined to one another in particular ways (social cohesion)

- influenced durkheim's concept of solidarity

2) social dynamics

- social evolution

- Durkheim's theory of social change: one form of solidarity to another

- Durkheim is against the unilinear conception of social evolution; past events are not full determining, society can be developed in more than one way

• views social evolution as part of the general natural evolution
• increasing differentiation & specialisation
• increased D.O.L --> mutual dependence
• Libertarian position of politics
• Durkheim is against Spencer's individualistic approach [due to his understanding of psychology]

• is determined from psychology
• cannot be reduced to individual consciousness

"individual consciousness, by associating themselves in a stable way, reveal through their interrelationships, a new life very different from that which would have developed had they remained uncombined, this is social life"