Ahlak ve Toplum

by Émile Durkheim, Duygu Çenesiz (Translator)

‘’Ne kadar güçlü olursa olsun, tek başına bir kişinin toplum karşısında hiçbir anlamı yoktur; toplum ona rağmen varlığını sürdürebilir. Dolayısıyla otoritenin gücü, otoriteyi uygulayan kişinin kendisinden değil, toplumun kendi oluşumundan ileri gelir.’’

Bugün Emile Durkheim, bilimsel sosyolojinin kurucusu olarak anılmakla birlikte, aynı zamanda Machiavelli, Montesquieu ve Rousseau gibi toplumsal düşüncenin önde gelen isimlerinden biridir. Onun yaratıcı toplum vizyonu, toplumu yalnızca analiz etmekle kalmayıp, aynı zamanda da toplumun yenilenmesi için izlenmesi gereken yolları incelikle ortaya koyar. Durkheim’ın bu çalışması, bireyleri etkisi altına alan toplumsal düşüncenin temelindeki kolektif temsillere ve bu temsillerin mahiyetine dikkat çekiyor. Bireylerin akıl ve inanç eksenindeki ikili varoluşlarının, toplumsal yapıyı tümüyle etkileyen din ve ahlak kavramlarını nasıl oluşturduğunu ortaya koyuyor.

Genres: Sociology, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Psychology, Politics, Social Science, Theory

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

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

[Doc · Rating 5 out of 5]

This edited volume is a great introduction to Durkheim for folks who are primarily interested in the philosophical / moral questions he raised. There's not as much description of sociological methods (see his other works for that). Personally I found parts of this book to be quite moving.

[Louise Flynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome book, maybe I should study sociology too?? Lols x

[Jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

When people talk about God they are really talking about society. When they say God is transcendent, they mean that the needs of society transcend the needs of the individual.

Durkheim studied the death rituals of aboriginal Australians.

[Priyonisme]

Emile Durkheim on Morality and Society. Sociologist that coin the term "ANOMIE" society

[Göker Makaskıran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Durkheim'in çeşitli makalelerinden ve temel çalışmalarının önemli bölümlerinden oluşan bir derleme. Sosyal bilimler alanında okuma yapan herkesin okuma listesine alması gereken bir kitap.

[Blaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robert Bellah's reader finds a convincing throughline spanning Durkheim's explanation of the origin of religious feeling to his attempt and his attempt to clarify the nature of the object of his discipline of study, sociology. "Society is a reality sui generis; it has its own characteristics that are either not found in the rest of the universe or are not found there in the same form." Just as the chemist does not explain the reactions of compounds by a reduction to the nuclear forces, just as the biologist cannot explain the animal kingdom by reducing them to their constituent chemical compounds, neither can the sociologist explain society as a mere aggregation of individual persons. The case is, rather, the reverse: the individual is the result of a lengthy and sophisticated social development; "man is man only because he is civilized … it is only by historical analysis that we can discover what makes up man, since it is only in the course of history that he is formed."

Hence we are dependent for our nature as individuals on society, and we are empowered by it. The earliest form of society is the clan: a kind of generalized family structure. The earliest form of religion is the worship of totems: typical examples are a symbolic owl or a flower. These totems are worshipped while actual living owls and flowers are not. "Thus the totem is before all a symbol, a material expression of something else. But of what? … In the first place, it is the outward and visible form of what we have called the totemic principle or god. But it is also the the symbol of the determined society called the clan. It is its flag; it is the sign by which each clan distinguishes itself from the others, the visible mark of its personality, a mark borne by everything which is part of the clan under any title whatsoever, men, beasts, or things. So if it is at once the symbol of the god and of the society, is that not because the god and the society are only one?"

Family, patriotism, god, metaphysics, logical a priori truth, love -- everything that has the capacity to command our obedience -- in the beginning all run together like headwaters, a singular expression of the greater reality on which our own meager reality is dependent, and through faith in which we become capable of what is not meager. "A god is not merely an authority upon whom we depend; it is a force upon which our strength relies. The man who has obeyed his god and who, for this reason, believes the god is with him, approaches the world with confidence and with the feeling of an increased energy. Likewise, social action does not confine itself to demanding sacrifices, privations and efforts from us. For the collective force is not entirely outside of us; it does not act upon us wholly from without; but rather, since society cannot exist except in and through individual consciousnesses, this force must also penetrate us and organize itself within us; it thus becomes an integral part of our being and by that very fact this is elevated and magnified."

Our thoughts, at their most universal, express our internalization of the voice of society which, where once it barked commands and shook its flag in our face, continues to whisper its demands in our innermost ear.

[Bahadır Hoşver · Rating 5 out of 5]

Toplum tek tek bireylerden olustugunun farkinda olan ama tek kisinin toplumun genel temayulleri ve ahlak anlayisini degistiremeyecegini savunan Durkheim, toplum olgusunun insanlarin nesiller arasi hafizasinda koklu bir yeri oldugunu savunuyor. Kolektivizmin, insanlarin akillica oldugunu dusundugu fikirlerin yururluge sokulmasi oldugunu dusundum kitabi okurken. Ama her zaman en akillica fikir populer olan fikir midir? Zannetmiyorum ama cogu insanin uzerinde konsensus sagladigi fikirlerin de uygulanmaya deger oldugunu dusunuyorum. Durkheim ile her konuda uzlasamasam da kolektivizmin gucu uzerine beni dusundurdugu icin kitabi keyifle okudum.

[Bahar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kesinlikle bir başlangıç okuması değil. Ben ahlak psikolojisi felsefesi biliyorum bunu da okuyayım diye okunacak bir kitap da değil. Cidden emek ve alt yapı isteyen bir kitap. Belirli ölçüde Spencer ve yapısalcı sosyolojik görüş hakkında bilgi sahibi olmadan toplumsal kurum kavramına aşina olmadan okumayı önermem. Kitabın içerisinde ezbere öğrenilen mekanik ve organik toplum ayrımı da çok güzel anlatılmış sadece o kısım için bile okunabilir.
Kitabı okurken Durkheimin olgular ve kavramları aktarma ve kanıtlama şekline düşüncesindeki derinliğe hayran olmamak elde değil.

[Wallace Rinquest · Rating 4 out of 5]

I mostly just read this book because I wanted to know what Sociology even is but I am glad I know a little bit more about it now. I just had the problem of spacing out as I read and some pages looked and felt the same and overall it just felt like a wall of text to get past sometimes but still some good explanations where given and it is worth reading if you want a more depth given explanation on what Sociology is.

[Sebastian 14 1 9 18 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This guy loves society

[Jeremy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book pretty much sums up why I am going into Psychology and not Sociology. Sanctimonious and mainly interested in the masses, it is typical of most sociological work.

[Basse · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant perspective on the governing bodies of society.