Chinese Journal of Sociology ›› 2017, Vol. 37 ›› Issue (6): 1-32.

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After Sacred Society:Commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the Death of Émile Durkheim

QU Jingdong   

  1. Department of Sociology, Peking University
  • Online:2017-11-20 Published:2017-11-20
  • Supported by:

    This paper was the phased results of the project "Durkhoim's maral education thought and professional ethics and social construction of civic morals" (13BSH004) sponsoned by the National Social Science Foundation of China

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Abstract:

The era that Durkheim lived in was the climax of the development of Western civilization as well as a time of profound crises. This paper begins with exploring the internal root of modernity in the state of anomie as discussed by Durkheim, and follows by an analysis of the social causes of the prevalence of individualism, nationalism and the imperialism of absolute state power. This is to demonstrate that the core theoretical task of Durkheim is to reconstruct multiple solidarity between all the key elements of modern society and therefore to place people in a concrete society and politics in a real social implementation. To fully reveal the inherent connection between groups and the state, professions and democracy, morality and politics, and to overcome the non-temporal limitation of moral statistics method, Durkheim demonstrated the concreteness of social facts through four normative categories:corporation, state, property and contract. Furthermore, Durkheim's historical analysis dealt with the soul world based on norms, and his religious studies established a social being from the four aspects of ontology, realism, theory of knowledge and ethics. According to Durkheim, this was the only path to finally resolve the problem of norms and order. Lastly, this paper shows that, as an educator, Durkheim was concerned about the crisis of modernity and discussed in-depth the core issues of education such as by what kind of educational approaches, and what kind of sacred existence values people should be taught, how the transmission of knowledge achieves cohesion of morality and the inherent spirit of civilization and so on. In conclusion, this paper gives a systematic account of Durkheim's intellectual heritage in four aspects:crisis, history, religion and education, commemorating the centenary of the death of this great master of thought.

Key words: crisis, religion, education, anomie