Emile Durkheim

Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)

Emile Durkheim has often been described as the founder of professional sociology. French by nationality, he has more than a territorial affinity with the two earliest sociologists Comte and Saint-Simon. Intellectually Durkheim willingly inherited the ideas of the Division of Labour and the Biological Analogy. Both ideas which had been variously advanced by Comte and Saint-Simon.

Durkheim is best known for his development of an holistic and functionalist approach in sociology. Holism is an approach which stresses that sociology should focus on and study large social processes and institutions. Functionalism is an approach which aims to discover the roles these institutions and processes play in maintaining social order . Because of this stress upon large social processes and institutions, Durkheim's sociology can be described as macro-sociological as compared to a micro-sociological approach which takes as it’s starting point the individual.
Durkheim's central objective was to give sociology a professional and scientific standing comparable with other well established ‘natural’ and social sciences. In order to accomplish this Durkheim argued that it was necessary to explicitly state the domain or area of study for sociology.