Karl Marx And Emile Durkheim: The Father Of Sociology

‘The long 19th Century’ was a period characterized by constant fluxes and changes particularly in the political ambit as well as the socio-economic one. It was also a time in which great minds like, Karl Marx, Max Webber and Emile Durkheim lived. The latter, also hailed as being “The Father of Sociology”, lived in France in the second half of the 19th Century. France, in the life-time of Durkheim, was undergoing an historical transformation from an agricultural society, to a vastly modern one, which centred around city and its industry. Such transition brought with it great social disorder, but also new and unusual ways of thinking, which had a profound impact on society as a whole. Moreover, at the time understudied, there were also tensions between France and Germany, which ultimately culminated with the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war in 1870 and ended with the humiliation of France and the annexation of the resource-rich region of Alsace-Lorraine.

Understanding the historical context in which Durkheim found himself is of crucial importance as the events he witnessed funnelled his thoughts towards particular questions, more specifically: what is the glue that holds society together? Indeed, one of the most significant claims made by Durkheim was the proposal of the notion of ‘Social Facts’. These ‘facts’ are all the entities that constitute a society; norms, beliefs, ideas, religion, the economy, politics, etc., concepts and institutions which are all inter-related