ABSTRACT
Emile Durkheim presents anomie through two dichotomies. The first dichotomy is between acute or transitory anomie on the one hand, and chronic or even institutionalized anomie on the other. The second dichotomy is between regressive and progressive anomie, and, in the author's opinion, this distinction is misleading. A very strange career, with ups and downs, since the word anomie disappeared after Durkheim and sprang up again, met with a great success for fifteen years, then declined again and has now vanished. Anomie, is conceived as the absence or the defect of a social regulation capable of insuring cooperation between specialized functions. The confusion between anomie and egoism explains why Durkheim has often been presented as the sociologist of anomie. In addition, the interpretation enables to have a more precise understanding of Durkheim's fundamental insight and of the true nature of anomie in Suicide.
