ABSTRACT
Durkheim, being the son of a rabbi, began to prepare for the rabbinate and studied the Old Testament, the Talmud, the Hebrew language and Hebrew history. He abandoned these interests early in his life, but in the latter part of his career as a sociologist religion became the subject of one of his most daring studies. ‘He would often remind people that he was, after all, the son of a rabbi’.1 In order to join the teaching profession Durkheim entered the Ecole Normale Supérieure at Paris in 1879 where entry is on the basis of nationwide competitive examination. Durkheim found the institution quite stimulating but uncongenial; the strong emphasis there on a rhetorical humanism conflicted with Durkheim’s tough-minded concern for society’s pressing problems. In his view the solution to these problems did not lie in pretty words or mystical ecstasy; the use of methods of science and practical, cooperative endeavour in empirical enterprises had to form the basis for any kind of diagnosis and treatment of society. He was appointed professor of Philosophy at the Lycée of Sens in 1882 and remained there until 1887. By 1886 he had made the first formulation of his theory of social solidarity and social evolution. By 1887 he was recognized in the field as an outstanding sociologist. At the University of Bordeaux a course in the social sciences was created for him in 1887-the first official recognition in France of the social sciences. In 1897 he organized the Année Sociologique. With the help of a group of brilliant men he made a detailed and critical analysis of much of the sociological and anthropological literature. The first volume of the Année which was the joint product of thirteen collaborators was published in 1898.
