Developments in the Phenomenological Reading of Durkheim's Work

Abstract

The opposition between sociology and Durkheimian sociology is not as absolute as it is often presented. The various ways in which Durkheim's work has been read by authors throughout the last fifty years testify to a development toward greater proximity, implying changes in phenomenologists' interpretation of Durkheim as well as in their own starting points. Beginning with an exposition of one of the most antithetical stands towards Durkheim, the article points out different phases of the aforementioned development: (1) A more or less total opposition; (2) A positive view of the challenge that phenomenologists can find in Durkheim's work and an attempt to incorporate it into their own viewpoints without really changing the latter; (3) A simultaneous reinterpretation of Durkheim's sociologism and the notions of subjectivity and intentionality, on the common basis of a renewed insight into the corporeal character of human social phenomena. In the history of sociology there seems to be no greater opposition imaginable than the one between Durkheim's views and the direction which is, somewhat misleadingly, called phenomenological sociology.' Nowadays no one, except the protagonists of a rigorous uniformity of methodology and theory in sociology, would disagree with such a divergence. For, when one accepts pluralism in the human sciences as a reality, it becomes possible to see fruitful results coming out of it. These results, however, will never occur, if pluralism is interpreted as a mere parallelism of currents which are basically self-sufficient and therefore remain closed to each other. Nor can results be expected from a simple confrontation of the opposing currents: here the risk is too high,