6. Emile Durkheim

Question 0

He spent fifteen years at Bordeaux and wrote some of his most famous books there: The Division of Labour in Society (1893), The Rules of Sociological Method (1895) and Suicide (____).

Answer 0

1897

Question 1

Emile Durkheim was born on the 15th April ____ at Épinal in Alsace-Lorraine.

Answer 1

1858

Question 2

Durkheim, set out to establish sociology as a strictly scientific, precise, empirical study of ‘the ____’.

Answer 2

social

Question 3

Durkheim reasons that sociology in order to be deemed ‘____’ must study what he calls ‘social facts as things’. The fundamental rules for the study of social facts as things were set down in Durkhem’s famous book, The Rules of Sociological Method.

Answer 3

scientific

Question 4

Durkheim is saying that a particular ____ ____ must be taken towards social facts like suicide and religion.

Answer 4

mental attitude

Question 5

Social facts ought to be ____ in the same rigorous manner as objects and events in nature.

Answer 5

analysed

Question 6

Social facts rendered as things are accessible through sense perception, that is, they can be subject to ____.

Answer 6

observation

Question 7

Durkheim is saying that we can study a social phenomenon like suicide by analysing ____ ____, as distinct from the reasons and intentions that the individual may have for committing suicide.

Answer 7

statistical measures

Question 8

The difficulty from Durkheim’s standpoint is that ____, ____, ____ and so on are not immediately apparent. They cannot be directly observed.

Answer 8

meanings, reasons, intentions

Question 9

Durkheim goes on to define ____ ____ more precisely when he refers to the dual character of social facts as both external and constraining.

Answer 9

social facts

Question 10

In respect of the exteriority of social facts, Durkheim contends that the facts observed by the sociologist are ____ to the individual.

Answer 10

external

Question 11

Regarding the _____ nature of social facts, Durkheim reasons that these facts are endowed with coercive power in the sense that they can be imposed upon the individual independently of their will.

Answer 11

constraining

Question 12

Individuals generally adhere to social norms because they either consider them ____ or they are habituated to obeying them.

Answer 12

legitimate

Question 13

Durkheim differentiates between two types of social facts. ____ ____ are real material entities but they are not of the greatest significance in Durkheim’s sociological writings.

Answer 13

Material facts

Question 14

Material facts include: ____ (eg. New Zealand society), structural components of society (eg. the state occupational associations) and morphological components of society (e g. the distribution of population).

Answer 14

society

Question 15

____ _____ are at the core of Durkheim’s sociology.

Answer 15

Non-material facts

Question 16

Non-material facts include: morality, collective conscience, social ____

Answer 16

currents

Question 17

____ - notions of what is deemed right or wrong in a particular society.

Answer 17

morality

Question 18

____ ____ - the shared values, beliefs, norms, and sentiments of specific collectivities such as a professional occupational association or a religious institution;

Answer 18

collective conscience

Question 19

____ ____ - what Durkheim refers to as ‘the great movements of enthusiasm, indignation and pity in a crowd’.

Answer 19

social currents

Question 20

Durkheim is an exponent of the Enlightenment thinkers’ notion of ____. Experience is considered as the source of all scientific knowledge.

Answer 20

empiricism

Question 21

Scientific knowledge is acquired through sense perception. Sociology to be deemed scientific must begin with _____.

Answer 21

observation

Question 22

Social facts like suicide are treated as ____ (an object) quite separate from the motives and intentions of the individuals being studied and from the sociological observer.

Answer 22

things

Question 23

Caution: The sociologist cannot fully understand social life (unlike, for instance, the physicist studying atoms), if he totally ____ the meanings individuals bestow on their conduct or the motives and intentions grounding human action.

Answer 23

ignores

Question 24

It is important to underline the fact that according to Durkheim, anything which is a source of solidarity is ____. Anything which compels the individual to take account of others is ____. The individual is deemed to be a ____ being only because they live in society.

Answer 24

moral

Question 25

It is Durkheim’s contention that traditional pre-modern societies are characterised by ____ ____. The social structure of these societies can be aptly described as made up of small-scale, rural, agricultural units.

Answer 25

mechanical solidarity

Question 26

It follows that solidarity between individuals is brought about through ____ ____. The fact that the different occupations are so similar, implies that concordance between individuals arises almost automatically; solidarity is mechanical.

Answer 26

social likeness

Question 27

For Durkheim, the collective conscience in a society distinguished by mechanical solidarity is noted for its _____. The thoughts of individuals are almost interchangeable since they all share common beliefs, values, norms and sentiments.

Answer 27

homogeneity

Question 28

In fact, the ____ ____ (what may aptly be called the group mind) is so pervasive that there is little room for individuality.

Answer 28

collective conscience

Question 29

What Durkheim calls ____ ____ attests to the all-pervasive power of the collective conscience. Altruistic suicide is the normal type of suicide in simple, traditional, pre-modern societies.

Answer 29

altruistic suicide

Question 30

Altruistic suicide is quite a ____ ____ in modern societies, but it does occur especially amongst the military In this context, suicide may express itself in acts of heroism as in the case of the kamikaze pilot or the Muslim fundamentalist killed by his own bomb.

Answer 30

rare event

Question 31

____ ____ involve punishing the offender for violating a traditional societys moral codes. Punishment (eg- loss of an offenders life) represents an act of vengeance on the part of an outraged community whose moral codes have been transgressed.

Answer 31

Repressive sanctions

Question 32

lt is worth noting that repressive sanctions in traditional, pre-modern European society up to the end of the eighteenth century often took the form of _____ ____. The torture and murder of those accused of violating the law was a public spectacle witnessed by many people.

Answer 32

public executions

Question 33

It is the view of Durkheim that the division of labour in modern, large-scale, urban industrial societies is complex. Differences between occupations became clearly defined with the onset of _____.

Answer 33

specialisation

Question 34

Solidarity in a society distinguished by a complex division of labour is grounded in ____ between individuals.

Answer 34

differences

Question 35

Each individual performs a highly specialised task in the modern division of labour (eg. the division of labour in a government bureaucracy or business corporation) leading to increased ____ amongst individuals. The necessity for mutual co-operation is built into the highly complex division of labour in modern society.

Answer 35

interdependence

Question 36

This is tantamount to saying that social solidarity is what Durkheim aptly calls ____ ____.

Answer 36

organic solidarity

Question 37

The basis for solidarity in modern society is ____, since mutual interdependence is inherent in the highly specialised division of labour.

Answer 37

structural

Question 38

Although the highly complex division of labour is in a structural sense leading to greater integration in modern society, Durkheim asserts that a ____ of the collective conscience is simultaneously occurring.

Answer 38

weakening

Question 39

A uniform set of beliefs, values, norms and sentiments is no longer necessarily shared by all the members of modern, industrial society. And the weakened ____ ____, by the same token, undergoes a process of secularisation (ie, the decline of religious beliefs and values).

Answer 39

collective conscience

Question 40

Durkheim maintains that the highly complex division of labour in modern society empowers the individual to develop a sense of ____ ____ and uniqueness and pursue independent thinking.

Answer 40

personal identity

Question 41

The primary objective of ____ ____ is not punishment but the restoration of the relations between indmduals or groups disrupted by the violation of the law.

Answer 41

restitutive sanctions

Question 42

In view of the fact that social cohesion in modern society ____ upon co-operation between individuals performing highly specialised tasks, restitutive sanctions refect this structural reality.

Answer 42

depends

Question 43

____ is the term used by Durkheim to describe the widespread disorder, de-regulation and normlessness present in modern, industrial society. Anomie attests to a crisis of morality.

Answer 43

Anomie