1st Edition

Durkheim and Representations

Edited By W. S. F. Pickering Copyright 2000
    200 Pages
    by Routledge

    200 Pages
    by Routledge

    Durkheim's sociological thought is based on the premise that the world cannot be known as a thing in itself, but only through representations, rough approximations of the world created either individually or collectively. This set of papers by leading Durkheimians from Britain, America and continental Europe is the first concentrated attempt to understand what he meant by representations, how his understanding of the term was influenced by Kant and by neo-Kantians like Charles Renouvier and how his use of the concept in his work developed over time. By arguing that his use of representations at the the core of Durkheim's sociological thought, this book makes a unique contribution to Durkheimian studies which have recently been dominated by positivist and functionalist interpretations, and reveals a thinker very much in tune with contemporary developments in philosophy, linguistics and sociology.

    1. Hayek and After  2. Conflicts in Social Science  3. Political Thought of Andre Gorz  4. Corruption, Capitalism and Democracy  5. Freedom and Culture in Western Society  6. Freedom in Economics  7. Against Politics  8. Max Weber and Michel Foucault  9. The Political Economy of Civil Society and Human Rights  10. On Durkheim’s Elementary Forms of Religious Life  11. Classical Individualism  12. The Age of Reasons  13. Individualism in Modern Thought  14. Property and Power in Social Theory  15. Wittgenstein and the Idea of a Critical Social Theory  16. Marxism and Human Nature  17. Goffman and Social Organization  18. Situating Hayek  19. The Reading of Theoretical Texts  20. The Nature of Capital  21. Beyond Pessimism of the Intellect  22. Durkheim and Representations

    Biography

    W.S. F. Pickering