Primitive Classification: Selected Writings in Social Theory

by Émile Durkheim

In this influential work, first published in English in 1963, Durkheim and Mauss claim that the individual mind is capable of classification and they seek the origin of the ‘classificatory function’ in society. On the basis of an intensive examination of forms and principles of symbolic classification reported from the Australian aborigines, the Zuñi and traditional China, they try to establish a formal correspondence between social and symbolic classification. From this they argue that the mode of classification is determined by the form of society and that the notions of space, time, hierarchy, number, class and other such cognitive categories are products of society.

Dr Needham’s introduction assesses the validity of Durkhiem and Mauss’s argument, traces its continued influence in various disciplines, and indicates its analytical value for future researches in social anthropology.

Genres: Anthropology, Sociology, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Social Science, Theory, Academic

149 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Much of Durkheim's work was concerned with how societies could maintain their integrity and coherence in modernity; an era in which traditional social and religious ties are no longer assumed, and in which new social institutions have come into being. His first major sociological work was The Division of Labor in Society (1893). In 1895, he published his Rules of the Sociological Method and set up the first European department of sociology, becoming France's first professor of sociology.

In 1896, he established the journal L'Année Sociologique. Durkheim's seminal monograph, Suicide (1897), a study of suicide rates amongst Catholic and Protestant populations, pioneered modern social research and served to distinguish social science from psychology and political philosophy. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912), presented a theory of religion, comparing the social and cultural lives of aboriginal and modern societies.

Durkheim was also deeply preoccupied with the acceptance of sociology as a legitimate science. He refined the positivism originally set forth by Auguste Comte, promoting what could be considered as a form of epistemological realism, as well as the use of the hypothetico-deductive model in social science. For him, sociology was the science of institutions,[citation needed] its aim being to discover structural social facts. Durkheim was a major proponent of structural functionalism, a foundational perspective in both sociology and anthropology. In his view, social science should be purely holistic; that is, sociology should study phenomena attributed to society at large, rather than being limited to the specific actions of individuals.

He remained a dominant force in French intellectual life until his death in 1917, presenting numerous lectures and published works on a variety of topics, including the sociology of knowledge, morality, social stratification, religion, law, education, and deviance. Durkheimian terms such as "collective consciousness" have since entered the popular lexicon.

Reviews

[versarbre]

Men's classification of the world invariably started from the classification of the social groups. And they observe things in the forms of groups instead of individuals. Such collective representations arises from special social sentiments. For a social scientist, then, his task would be to reveal the sentiments and more elaborated collective representations of one society. It's both of intellectual benefits and practical utility.

[Alex]

Good question: what is the history of the idea of 'concept,' that certain things or abstractions 'belong' to each other? Have people always conceived the concept in the same way?

Bad answer: People got the idea to classify things because they were already classified into moeities, clans, and subclans, and all categorizations stemmed from people taking a good look at themselves.

[Alexander]

The translator's note is extensive and acts as a history and compilation of criticisms relating to this text. Most of which are provided to disprove what you're about to read. Like most early works of cultural anthropology, someone should read them with a grain of salt and interrogate how concepts have changed. I don't need the translator doing that for me, seemingly to invalidate the work before it's read.

[Luis Ignacio]

"Se ha afirmado con harta frecuencia que el hombre comenzó por representarse las cosas relacionándolas consigo mismo. Lo que precede permite precisar mejor en qué consiste este antropocentrismo, que sería preferible llamar sociocentrismo. El centro de los primeros sistemas de la naturaleza no es el individuo, sino la sociedad"

[Brooklyn Butler]

Booo tomatoes tomatoes throwing tomatoes

[Dyan]

Originally published in 1903, this text has not aged well at all. Rodney Needham's introduction goes some way to highlight its many, many flaws. That being said, this was one of the first anthropological and sociological works to focus specifically on "classification" as a concept - and moreover, to contend that classification is a social process and not an inherently cognitive one, as had been argued by the psychology of the day. In that way it is indeed a "classic" academic text, and interesting to read as such.

[Anna]

just awesome!

[Phoenix2]

A good athropologiacl study on the classification.