ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the development of David Emile Durkheim's work and that of his German contemporary Max Weber, who responded in quite differing ways to the questions of conflict and change that animated most social theory in the late nineteenth century. Durkheim had studied Comte and adopted from him his positivism and use of the organismic analogy, but he also set out to answer one of Comte's concerns about the nature of industrial society. While stating that the goal of positivist social science should be to insure order and progress, Auguste Comte had also pondered the possibly corrosive effects of the growing division of labor in industrial society. Function is a notion inherent in Durkheim's sociology, and is shared by all social theorists influenced by him. The chapter shows an implicit contrast with Karl Marx in how Durkheim accounted for the division of labor in modern society.
