The individual and society in Durkheim

Unpicking the contradictions

Bibliographic Data

ID2398098
AuthorsFinn Bowring (0000-0001-7475-5076, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK, corresponding author)
Year2016
Volume19
Issue1
Pages21-38
Publication date2016-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEuropean Journal of Social Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1368-4310 • E-ISSN: 1461-7137
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1368431015585042
OpenAlexW1775849850
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited39

In revisiting Durkheim's humanism in recent years, attention has been drawn to his theory of moral individualism and the usefulness of his argument that a reformed democratic capitalism can reconcile individual freedom with collective constraint. This article investigates Durkheim's understanding of the relationship between the individual and society in greater detail, showing in the process that his thinking was ambiguous and inconsistent. Although he flirted with the notion that capitalist modernity might actively foster and legitimize destructive forms of individualism, his default position was to attribute anti-social drives to a human nature set loose by weak or inadequate social norms, and then to idealize liberal humanism as the ethical remedy for this normative deficiency. The article argues that the inconsistencies in his thinking are significant, however, because they testify to the underlying contradiction between the logic of capitalism and the ideals of moral individualism, and to the difficulty of locating the moral individual in a morally irrational world

Argument (complex analysis · Capitalism · Contradiction · Epistemology · Humanism · Individualism · Irrational number · Liberalism · Modernity · Normative · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Emile Durkheim and Sociology · Law · Philosophy · Philosophy, Sociology, Political Theory

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