Scholar, Sociologist and Public Figure: the Intellectual Trajectory of Émile Durkheim in Fin-De-Siècle France
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Scholar, Sociologist and Public Figure: The Intellectual Trajectory of Émile Durkheim in fin-de-siècle France. by Colette Vesey University College London Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD I, Colette Vesey, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. 1 Acknowledgements It would not have been possible to complete this PhD without the guidance and help of a number of people around me. Above all, I extend my gratitude to my principal supervisor Prof. Philippe Marlière for his support from the beginning right through to the final stages of my work. His sound advice, patient reading and judicious comments on my research and writing have been invaluable. I also thank my second supervisor Dr. Mark Hewitson for his help with academic writing and for simply being available to offer advice whenever needed. I would like to acknowledge the academic support of University College London and its staff, the Centre for European studies, and especially Dr. Stephanie Bird and Dr. Kevin Inston for their assistance on numerous occasions over the past few years. I also thank the French Department and its staff, especially Prof. Mairéad Hanrahan who helped make possible my extended stay in France. With fond memories, I thank all my friends at the University of Paris Sorbonne- Nouvelle for their warm welcome, and Dr. Ivan Birks in particular for his professional support throughout the time I spent in Paris. Finally, a special thanks to Ermanno for being an unfailing source of encouragement, and to all my family and friends in Ireland, to my parents Ann and Eugene, who helped and supported me right to the end. 2 The period stretching from around 1880 to 1914 was one of great creative effervescence in France, marked by new trends in art and literature and the opening up of new fields of knowledge. A time of increasing political polarisation, it was also in this epoch that scholars, writers and artists began to get involved in the political life of the nation on an unprecedented scale and when the term ‘intellectual’ first came into common usage. Remembered today as the founder of the French school of sociology it is from this period that Émile Durkheim’s scientific breakthrough dates. Drawing on a set of conceptual tools elaborated by Pierre Bourdieu, this project delves into the early period of French sociology and seeks to explain how Durkheim managed to distinguish himself among his contemporaries as the legitimate representative of the new discipline in France. Through looking at his ties to the major institutions of the French intellectual field it traces Durkheim’s progress from a situation of relative marginality in the 1880s to a dominant intellectual position by the eve of the First World War. The suggestion is that through enquiring into the sources of Durkheim’s legitimacy we can also gain an original perspective on the debated topic of his politics and conception of his own role as a public intellectual during the French Third Republic. 3 Introduction...............................................................................p. 10 1.Context............................................................................................................p. 15 2. Literature Review...........................................................................................p. 18 3. Thesis Question..............................................................................................p. 31 Chapter 1 Durkheim as Sociologist and Intellectual 1.1 Intellectuals and their Social Role.......................................................p. 37 1.1.1 The Demand for Disinterest .................................................................................p. 38 1.1.2 Before ‘Yea-Sayers’ and ‘Nay-Sayers’................................................................p. 42 1.2 The Making of an Intellectual.............................................................p. 46 1.2.1 Symbolic Violence and the Intellectual Elite........................................................p. 47 1.2.2 Field, Capital, Habitus..........................................................................................p. 50 1.2.3 Doxa, Orthodoxy, Heterodoxy..............................................................................p. 55 1.3 A Specifically French Context ...........................................................p. 57 1.3.1 Durkheim’s Intellectual Vocation.........................................................................p. 58 1.3.2 Paris and the Academic Structure.........................................................................p. 64 1.3.3 Institutions, Journals, Associations……………………………………………...p. 70 Conclusion.................................................................................................p. 73 4 Chapter 2 Durkheim’s Scientific Début and the Question of Legitimacy 2.1 The Scientist and the Intellectual Field...............................................p. 76 2.1.1 From the Laboratory to the People.......................................................................p. 77 2.1.2 Positivism and the Cult of Science.......................................................................p. 80 2.1.3 The Allure of Germany.........................................................................................p. 84 2.2 Sociology and its Scientific Credentials..............................................p. 87 2.2.1 History, Psychology and Sociology......................................................................p. 89 2.2.2 The Fouillée/Espinas Encounter...........................................................................p. 93 2.2.3 The German Connection.....................................................................................p. 100 2.3 An Institutional Foothold..................................................................p. 106 2.3.1 The Appointment at Bordeaux............................................................................p. 107 2.3.2 The History of Sociology....................................................................................p. 111 2.3.3 A Strategy of Moderation?..................................................................................p. 116 2.4 Science and Politics...........................................................................p. 122 2.4.1 Sociology and its Divisions. ..............................................................................p. 123 2.4.2 Solidarity and Social Action...............................................................................p. 129 Conclusion………………………………………………………...........p. 132 5 Chapter 3 Philosophy, Sociology and the Confrontation over Moral Science 3.1 The Crisis in Philosophy...................................................................p. 135 3.1.1 The Edifice of Victor Cousin..............................................................................p. 136 3.1.2 Spiritualism and Positive Science.......................................................................p. 140 3.1.3 The Demand for Originality............................................................................... p. 145 3.2 Durkheim’s Doctoral Thesis.............................................................p. 150 3.2.1 Specialisation and Solidarity...............................................................................p. 151 3.2.2 The Question of Moral Science..........................................................................p. 156 3.2.3 Spiritualism, Utilitarianism and the Jury............................................................p. 160 3.3 The Constitution of Positive Moral Science.....................................p. 166 3.3.1 Moral Philosophy as Science..............................................................................p. 168 3.3.2 The Original Introduction to the Division of Labour .........................................p. 171 3.3.3 Normality as a Critical Concept..........................................................................p. 176 3.3.4 Sociology and Philosophy..................................................................................p. 181 3.4 The Response from the Field............................................................p. 183 3.4.1 Objectivity and Democracy................................................................................p. 184 3.4.2 A Triumph for Gabriel Tarde..............................................................................p.188 Conclusion..............................................................................................p. 193 6 Chapter 4 The Foundation of the Année Sociologique 4.1 Durkheim’s Position in 1897 ............................................................p. 196 4.1.1 Two Parisian Chairs............................................................................................p. 197 4.1.2 Suicide and its Reception....................................................................................p. 201 4.2 Sociology and Sociological Journals…………………………….....p. 206 4.2.1 The Disciples of Le Play…………………………………………………….....p. 207 4.2.2 The International Sociologists…………………………………………………p. 212 4.2.3 Objective Affinities of the Durkheimians……………………………………...p. 217 4.3 The Année, its Aims and its Programme…………………………...p. 222 4.3.1 The ‘Scientific’ Common Denominator…………………………………….....p. 223 4.3.2 Durkheim on the Family……………………………………………………….p. 226 4.3.3 Sociology and the Social Sciences……………………………………………..p.