William Pickering - Debating Durkheim

An excellent collection of essays, which will make a useful addition to the English-language literature on Durkheim.

William Outhwaite, School of European Studies, University of Sussex.

In Debating Durkheim, leading international scholars are brought together to discuss controversial issues in the work of this increasingly important founding father of sociology. The subjects covered relate to Durkheim's Jewish background and its influence on his life and thought; a positive reinterpretation of Durkheim's study of primitive thought in terms of social classification; an attempt to shed new light on his book on methodology, The Rules, which has been much criticized; a philosophical and sympathetic analysis of the notion of the social; a discussion of Durkheim's sociology of morals based on a study of social facts; a careful consideration of the problems of Durkheim's references to state, nation and patriotism; and finally, an application of The Rules to data relating to first names and raising the issue of social imitation. The appendix is an extension of the first chapter and covers new translations and hitherto unpublished material by Durkheim on the issues of Jewishness and anti-semitism. As these essays will show, Durkheim raises basic issues which must be examined if contemporary society is to be understood.

William Pickering has devoted much of his academic life to the study of Durkheim. He is currently honorary organizing secretary at the British Centre for Durkheimian Studies, Oxford.

Herminio Martins is a Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford.

Contributors: N. J. Allen, Philippe Besnard, Mike Gane, Margaret Gilbert, Josep R. Llobera, W. S. F. Pickering, W. Watts Miller.

First published 1994
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York NY 10016

Reprinted 2001

Transferred to Digital Printing 2006

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

1994 W. S. F. Pickering, selection and editorial matter.
Copyright for the individual chapters resides with the contributors.

Typeset in Baskerville by Florencetype Ltd, Kewstoke, Avon

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Debating Durkheim / edited by W.S.F Pickering with Herminio
Martins.

p.cm.

Published in conjunction with the British Centre for Durkheimian Studies.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0415077206: $59.95

1. Durkheim, Emile, 18581917.2. SociologyFranceHistory. 3. SociologyPhilosophy.I. Pickering, W.S.F.II. Martins,
Herminio.III. British Centre for Durkheimian Studies.
HM10l.C4581994

ISBN 0415077206

N.J. Allen won a scholarship in classics to New College, Oxford in 1957. He studied medicine there and later in London. He returned to Oxford to study social anthropology, basing his D. Phil, on field work in Nepal. He lectured at Durham from 1972 to 1976. Since then he has been a lecturer in the Social Anthropology of South Asia at Oxford (Wolfson College). His main interests are: the Himalayas, Hinduism, kinship theory and Indo-European comparativism.

Philippe Besnard was born in 1942. He is director of research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris and teaches at the Institut dtudes Politiques. He is joint-editor of the Revue franaise de sociologie. He was for many years an active member of the Groupe dtudes durkheimiennes, an international network he created. Among the several books he has published are The Sociological Domain. The Durkheimians and the Founding of French Sociology (1983), L'Anomie (1987), Un prnom pour toujours. La cote des prnoms (1986).

Mike Gane is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences at Loughborough University. He was educated at Leicester University and the London School of Economics. He has written On Durkheim's Rules of Sociological Method (1988) and edited The Radical Sociology of Durkheim and Mauss (1992). He has also recently edited a book of interviews with Jean Baudrillard and written a book on theory, theorists and gender, both published by Routledge in 1993.

Margaret Gilbert is currently Professor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut, Storrs. She studied in Cambridge and Oxford, and has taught at a number of universities in Britain and the United States, including Princeton and UCLA. For many years she has specialized in the philosophy of social science.

Josep R. Llobera is Senior Lecturer in sociology and social anthropology at Goldsmiths College, University of London. He has published extensively on the history of the social sciences and on nationalism. His latest book is The Development of Nationalism in Western Europe, to appear in 1994.

Herminio Martins is a fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford. He has published papers in sociological theory, the sociology of knowledge, and on Portugal and Brazil. He has recently edited Knowledge and Passion: Essays in Honour of John Rex (1993), contributing a chapter on the philosophy of technology.

William S. F. Pickering formerly lectured in sociology in the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. He has now retired. Much of his academic life has been devoted to the study of Durkheim. He has edited and assisted in translations of Durkheim's works, Durkheim and Religion (1975), Durkheim On Morals and Education (1979). In 1984 he published Durkheim's Sociology of Religion: Themes and Theories. He is currently involved in setting up the British Centre for Durkheimian Studies at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology in the University of Oxford.

H. L. Sutcliffe was Earl Gray Memorial Fellow and subsequently lecturer in French language in the University of Newcastle upon Tyne until 1976. Since 1981, he has worked full-time as a freelance translator and prcis writer, largely within the United Nations system. He has published many translations of items by or about Durkheim.

Willie Watts Miller lectures in sociology and philosophy at the University of Bristol, writes on ethics, and is completing two books on Durkheim. One is a critical commentary on his study of moral life. The other develops and applies his approach to contemporary issues.