The pre scientific stage was broken by the introduction of the empirical method and not by conceptual discussion alone. This happened during the renaissance period. This is perhaps even more important is social science than in natural science because there is a strong tendency to treat social facts as either lacking in substantive reality (as creations of the individual will). The already known concepts like ‘democracy’, ‘socialism’ etc., awoke nothing but confused ideas, a tangle of vague impressions, prejudices and emotions’. To counter these tendencies, Durkheim said that social facts must be treated as ‘things’. As ‘things’ they have to be studied by the empirical method and not direct intuition; and also, they cannot be modified by a simple effort of the will. Durkheim is too concerned with the larger structural issues. Durkheim and Marx are similar in this sense, they both have a very strong structural view, with limited possibility for human action, or little theory of human action. Weber's model of action or some of the more recent approaches such as symbolic interaction would prove more useful here.

Various aspects of contemporary sociology reveal a marked Durkheimian influence.  These aspects include : conceptions of the field, methodological and stylistic approaches, the study of social change, the study of social order or integration, the theoretical orientation of functionalism, and a focus or emphasis on the study of values and beliefs.  Additionally, Durkheim’s influence is particularly significant in the subareas of the sociology of deviance,  the sociology of religion, the sociology of knowledge and science, the sociology of education, and the sociological study of suicide. 

The imprint of Durkheim’s thought on contemporary sociology in the United States is considerable.  Indeed, Durkheim’s influence is of such scope that it cannot be appreciated fully in this brief sketch.  Yet despite his present importance, Durkheim’s sociological ideas were not widely accepted by his American contemporaries, such as William Sumner, Charles Cooley, Lester Ward, and Franklin Giddings. It has been suggested that Durkheim’s emphasis on a sui generis society (and all it entailed) conflicted with his American contemporaries’ emphasis on voluntarism and individualism.  With changes in U.S. society and American sociology, however, Durkheim’s sociological influence grew considerably by the later 1930s.  In 1937 Talcott Parsons published his influential interpretation of Durkheim in English, and in 1939 Harry Alpert’s book, emphasizing Durkheim’s similarity to U.S. thought, was published. From this point, Durkheim’s reputation and influence continued to grow.  By the 1940s and 1950s he was widely considered to be one of the founders of modern sociological thought and research. This view still prevails today, and the degree of acquaintance of the practicing American sociologist with Durkheim’s thought has continued to expand. 

Durkheim asserted that sociology is a unique form of study, and most contemporary sociologists would agree with this assertion.  The study of society, Durkheim maintained, could not be reduced merely to the study of psychology, nor could society be explained in terms of geographic or racial characteristics.  Durkheim’s claims that, when people come together to form groups, phenomena or forces emerge from their interaction that are the property of the groups (not merely the psychological property of particular persons) is widely accepted today as a sociological truism. Following Durkheim, most contemporary sociologists (though with some notable exceptions) think of sociology as the study of roles, norms, institutions, social patterns, and characteristics of group life in general. After Durkheim, sociologists have tended to assume that such group characteristics shape, effect, influence, or determine the activities of subgroups or individuals. Thus, in accepting a Durkheimian conception of the field, sociologists explain activity in terms of such societal characteristics as demographic patterns, family structure, religious rituals and collectively shared beliefs, socialization norms and practices, and the like.  

More substantively, Durkheim’s conception of society as moving toward increasingly complexly, functional differentiation, and integration has informed and influenced many recent conceptions of social change or evolution.  For example, Durkheim’s influence can be seen in Parson’s and Gerhard Lenski’s respective theories of general social evolution, Robert Bellah’s work in religious evolutionism, Samuel Eisenstadt’s conceptions of political evolution, and Marion Levy’s writings on “modernization.”

Durkheim’s writings have also influenced studies of social order or integration.  Academics concerned with social order have been particularly influenced by Durkheim’s conception of society as an organic whole characterized by functionally specialized parts. Building on these Durkheimian conceptions of order, A.R. Radclilffe-Brown (in anthropology) and Talcott Parsons (in anthropology) and Talcott Parsons (in sociology) developed the orientation functionalism.  Functionalism, which dominated sociology in the 1950s, emphasizes the study of social phenomena in terms of their (functional) contributions to other social phenomena within a social whole. Although adherence to functionalism has recently declined in the field, it is still influential, and such controversial conceptions as Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore’s functional theory of stratification and still debated.

A further hallmark of Durkheim’s sociological approach is a focus on collectively shared values and beliefs.  In his various studies (such as those on the nature of social change, the causes of suicide, and the nature of religion), Durkheim focused on the nature of shared values and beliefs (what he termed “collective representations”), the relationship of various types of beliefs to one another, and their relationship to other types of social phenomena.

A Durkheimian emphasis, especially a concern with shared values and beliefs, is evident in a number of contemporary subareas of sociology, among them the sociology of deviance, religion, knowledge and science, and education; and the sociological study of suicide.  Merton’s anomic theory of deviance is perhaps the best example of Durkheimian influence on the study of deviance. Merton essentially sees deviance as arising from an “anomic” condition where the individual is in a social position in which the valued objects in a society are not achievable.  In the sociology of religion, many recent studies emphasize the social creation of the sacred and define religious phenomena as separating the sacred from the profane.  Similarly, a number of recent works on the sociology of knowledge and science explicitly accept that knowledge and science developed in matrix of social influences, including social organizational structures and beliefs. Durkheim is still read directly in the sociology of education and socialization, and he has also had an indirect effect through his influence on the thought of Jean Piaget.  Many of Piaget’s ideas were developed in a critical reaction to Durkheim’s earlier writings.  Finally, Durkheim’s influence remains paramount in the study of suicide and life-sacrificing behaviour, Studies on such recent topics as the actions of soldiers in combat who sacrifice themselves to save others are built on Durkheimian conceptions.

In sum, although some aspects of Durkheim’s though (such as that of corporatism) no longer engender much sociological analysis, many, if not most, of his conceptions have remained lively and continue to contribute to sociological knowledge.

Vision Of The Future

A large portion of Durkheim’s writings is concerned with the social problems confronting modern industrial society.  As we have seen, Durkheim considered his society to be an anomic one, characterized both by a lack of adequate moral regulation of individuals and by insufficient coordination and harmony among groups.  For Durkheim, modern society is marked by conflicts in the industrial world that spread disharmony and misery throughout society.  Such disharmony and misery can be seen in the high anomic and egoistic suicide rates of modern societies and in the meaninglessness and purposelessness that characterize the lives of many individuals.  Durkheim claimed that these problems persisted because the family, traditional religion, and the state all lack the strength to confront them adequately. Durkheim wrote

We are living precisely in one of those critical, revolutionary periods when authority is usually weakened through the loss of traditional discipline-a time that may easily give rise to a spirit of anarchy.  This is the sources of the anarchic aspirations that, whether consciously or not, are emerging today, not only in the particular sects bearing the name, but in the very different doctrines that, although opposed on other points, join in a common aversion of anything smacking of regulation.

Despite this negative evaluation of modern society, Durkheim’s view of the future was optimistic.  The problems that seemed so massive, he believed, would in future be open to solution.  Durkheim’s optimism was based on the belief that modern society was in a transitional period, facing many problems that were due to rapid social changes that had occurred recently.  Durkheim believed that rapid change in the way people organize their lives and in the organization of society had swept away old moral rules and regulations.  He argued that the social rules tied to a Preindustrial feudal society ceased to be effective as society rapidly became industrial and democratic.  These changes made the social moral rules that had developed in the older feudal society meaningless for modern day-to-day life.  Social problems thus existed because the old rules had declined without any new ones taking their place.  Given time, Durkheim argued new rules should naturally develop from the interaction of people and groups in industrial society. He maintained that as new rules for individuals life and social organization emerged, society would move from a disharmonious transitional form to a harmonious mature form.

According to Durkheim, this movement to a harmonious mature modern industrial societal type would be advanced by the development of sociology as a science.  As sociologist expanded their studies and increased their knowledge of social laws, they would be able to offer instrumental advice to decision makers on how society might be modified for the better.  Thus, for Durkheim, a science of society would not only  make us aware of the social problems inherent in society but would also provide the best means for overcoming those problems.

In a number of his works and university lectures Durkheim attempted to envision what a mature industrial society, recognized on the basis of sociological knowledge, would entail.  Essentially, he presented a communally organized industrial society in which many of the basic social functions would be performed by what he termed a “corporation.”  Thus his conception of society in the future can be referred to corporatism.

In order to overcome industrial conflict and promote understanding and solidarity, all members of a particular occupation in a region would belong to the some associations or “corporation.”  The  corporation would be made up of both employees and employers.  It would be administered by a council, some of whose members would represent the employers and others the workers in particular occupational fields. This council in turn would send representative to a group governing the occupation on a national  level (or a national corporate body).  Each national corporation, which together would represent all the members of a particular occupational area in society, would send representatives to a parliament governing the nation. Thus the national governing body would represent the interests of everyone, as well as having all the various expertise and knowledge of its diverse membership to call on in the formulation of national policy.

The function of the national parliament, once it was established, would be to set general national policy and to settle any disputes that might arise between various national corporations.  Each national corporation would be in charge of interpreting general national policy and of applying it to the particular occupation it represented.  The national corporations representing members of the same occupation.  The local corporation would have a duty to interpret national corporate policy in terms of local circumstances and environment and employers and between one owner and another.  Additionally, the local corporation would be in charge of education, social welfare, and recreational facilities. Durkheim believed it would create harmonious feelings among individuals in industrial society and would bring an end to the unregulated anomie of Durkheim’s day.

Durkheim, in sum, envisioned a future in which equality of opportunity and democracy would be perpetuated in a society organized in terms of industrial occupational categories.  Such a society, he believed, was possible and would develop out of the current transitional societal state and from the application of sociological knowledge