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Childhood and education
Durkheim was born in Épinal in Lorraine, coming from a long line of devout French Jews; his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had been rabbis.[6] He began his education in a rabbinical school, but at an early age, he decided not to follow in his family's rabbinical footsteps, and switched schools.[6][7] Durkheim himself would lead a completely secular life. Muchof his work was dedicated to demonstrating that religious phenomena stemmed from social rather than divine factors. While Durkheim chose not to follow in the family tradition, he did not sever ties with his family or with the Jewish community.[6] Many of his most prominent collaborators and students were Jewish, and some were blood relations.
A precocious student, Durkheim entered the ÉcoleNormale Supérieure (ENS) in 1879, at his third attempt.[7][8] The entering class that year was one of the most brilliant of the nineteenth century and many of his classmates, such as Jean Jaurès and Henri Bergson would go on to become major figures in France's intellectual history. At the ENS, Durkheim studied under the direction of Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges, a classicist with a social scientificoutlook, and wrote his Latin dissertation on Montesquieu.[9] At the same time, he read Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer. Thus Durkheim became interested in a scientific approach to society very early on in his career.[7] This meant the first of many conflicts with the French academic system, which had no social science curriculum at the time. Durkheim found humanistic studies uninteresting,turning his attention from psychology and philosophy to ethics and eventually, sociology.[7] He finished second to last in his graduating class when he obtained his agrégation in philosophy in 1882.
There was no way that a man of Durkheim's views could receive a major academic appointment in Paris. From 1882 to 1887 he taught philosophy at several provincial schools.[10] In 1885 he decided to leavefor Germany, where for two years he studied sociology in Marburg, Berlin and Leipzig.[10] As Durkheim indicated in several essays, it was in Leipzig that he learned to appreciate the value of empiricism and its language of concrete, complex things, in sharp contrast to the more abstract, clear and simple ideas of the Cartesian method.[11] By 1886, as part of his doctoral dissertation, he hadcompleted the draft of his The Division of Labor in Society, and was working towards establishing the new science of sociology.[10]
[edit]Academic career


A collection of Durkheim's courses on the origins of socialism (1896), edited and published by his nephew, Marcel Mauss, in 1928.
Durkheim's period in Germany resulted in the publication of numerous articles on German social science andphilosophy; Durkheim was particularly impressed by the work of Wilhelm Wundt.[10] Durkheim's articles gained recognition in France, and he received a teaching appointment in the University of Bordeaux in 1887, where he was to teach the university's first social science course.[10] His official title was Chargé d'un Cours de Science Sociale et de Pédagogie and thus he taught both pedagogy and sociology (thelatter had never been taught in France before).[4][12] The appointment of the social scientist to the mostly humanistic faculty was an important sign of the change of times, and the growing importance and recognition of the social sciences.[10] From this position Durkheim helped reform the French school system and introduced the study of social science in its curriculum. However, hiscontroversial beliefs that religion and morality could be explained in terms purely of social interaction earned him many critics.
Also in 1887, Durkheim married Louise Dreyfus. They would have two children, Marie and André.[4]
The 1890s were a period of remarkable creative output for Durkheim.[10] In 1892, he published The Division of Labour in Society, his doctoral dissertation and fundamental statement...