A note on the sociological eye and the discovery of a new Durkheim text

Bibliographic Data

ID7896623
AuthorsNeil Gro, Neil Gross (University of Wisconsin–Madison, corresponding author)
Year1996
Volume32
Issue4
Pages408-423
Publication date1996-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-5061 • E-ISSN: 1520-6696
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/(sici)1520-6696(199610)32:4<408::aid-jhbs5>3.0.co;2-m
OpenAlexW1965942198
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited15

The text consisting of recently discovered student notes taken during Émile Durkheim's 1883–1884 lycée lectures on philosophy bears few signs of the social realist perspective with which Durkheim's later work has been identified. Though some scholars have argued that Durkheim's thought was sociological almost from the start, the lectures suggest that Durkheim's sociological eye did not develop until well after the completion of his schooling at the École Normale Supérieure in 1882. This finding is consistent with accounts of Durkheim's intellectual development that stress the importance of his exposure to German scholarship, as well as his consideration of the work of Comte and Rousseau, in the years following 1885. However, these accounts have generally failed to distinguish between the development of Durkheim's philosophy of social realism and the unfolding of the practical worldview that constituted his sociological perspective. This failure is not unique to Durkheimian scholarship, as there exists no general theory of the sociological eye on which historians of ideas can draw. This short essay makes the case that Durkheim's lycée lectures should be used to help develop such a theory. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Epistemology · German · Perspective (graphical) · Psychoanalysis · Scholarship · Social science · Sociological imagination · Sociological theory · Sociology · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Emile Durkheim and Sociology · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Social and Cultural Dynamics

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