Interpretations of Suicide

Bibliographic Data

ID5633370
AuthorsPeter Cresswell (0000-0003-0540-2351, corresponding author)
Year1972
Volume23
Issue2
Pages133
Publication date1972-06-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueBritish Journal of Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0007-1315 • E-ISSN: 1468-4446
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/589105
PMID5046474
OpenAlexW2061603149
LanguageEN
Citations received7

It is a common practice to look at other books by a writer when examining one particular work. Among the reasons for this is the need to see how the writer's ideas have developed over time: it may be, for example, that points which are initially unclearly expressed later become clarified or that there are levels of meaning which are made explicit in the earlier writings but taken as understood in the later writings. Two works by Durkheim, Suicide and The Division of Labour' are usually considered in very close conjunction because it is felt that in Suicide, the later book, there is a solution to a problem which was stated, but not solved, in the earlier book. The problem was, in a sense, an abstract one. In Durkheim's philosophy of society an important element was the 'collective consciousness', the real, existing expression of the moral force of society over the individual. In The Division of Labour there is a description of increasing specialization of tasks due to the breaking down of industrial processes into simple stages in late nineteenth-century Europe. With this increasing task specialization there was, Durkheim felt, a reduction of the type of solidarity which is characteristic of less developed societies with a lesser division of labour. This type of solidarity, inorganic solidarity, Durkheim believed to be a direct expression of the collective consciousness. Hence he had to conclude that, in more complex societies, the collective consciousness was weakened in the face of growing individual consciousness-although he also felt that the division of labour performed an integrative function in reducing the harsh effects of competition combined with rapid increase of population. In Suicide the problem is solved, it is claimed, by postulating a collective consciousness expressing individualistic values, and characteristic of complex societies: a different type of collective consciousness.2 The view that the division of labour, if not excessive, can be integrative, a source of 'organic' solidarity, is then sustained by suggesting that

Medical emergency · Emile Durkheim and Sociology · Medicine · Psychology

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