Rethinking Durkheim and his Tradition

This book offers a reassessment of the work of Emile Durkheim in the context of a French philosophical tradition that had seriously misinterpreted Kant by interpreting his theory of the categories as psychological faculties. Durkheim’s sociological theory of the categories, as revealed by Warren Schmaus, is an attempt to provide an alternative way of understanding Kant. For Durkheim the categories are necessary conditions for human society. The concepts of causality, space and time underpin the moral rules and obligations that make society possible. A particularly interesting feature of this book is its transcendence of the distinction between intellectual and social history by placing Durkheim’s work in the context of the French educational establishment of the Third Republic. It does this by subjecting student notes and philosophy textbooks to the same sort of critical analysis typically applied only to the classics of philosophy.

• A reconsideration of Durkheim in the intellectual context of the Third Republic in France • Broad, interdisciplinary interest

Preface and acknowledgements; 1. Durkheim and the social character of the categories; 2. Historical background: Aristotle and Kant; 3. The categories in early nineteenth-century French philosophy; 4. The later eclectic spiritualism of Paul Janet; 5. The early development of Durkheim’s thought; 6. Durkheim’s sociological theory of the categories; 7. Prospects for the sociological theory of the categories; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

‘With its wealth of research but also critical ideas and arguments, it makes an important and original contribution both to scholarship and ongoing debate in the area. For it is not just a history of ideas. It centres around the Durkheimian tradition, while ranging well beyond this, to offer a sort of critical narrative of the past, present, and possible future career of ‘the categories’. A bonus … is its plain style of writing and avoidance of obscurantism.’

– William Watts Miller, University of Bristol