ABSTRACT
Emile Durkheim is generally regarded as one of the key figures in the development of sociology as an academic discipline. In Durkheim’s view the crisis of the age gave the enterprise particular urgency. Durkheim’s scholarly reputation and the increasing legitimacy of the social sciences were confirmed by his promotion to a chair at Bordeaux in 1896, but the ultimate recognition-an invitation to teach at the Sorbonne-was withheld until 1902. While Durkheim stands beside Marx and Weber as a classic thinker whose work is known to most sociologists, his influence on Australian sociology is less apparent, and there are few obvious contenders for membership of a ‘Durkheimian school’. However, while his uncritical positivism is no more acceptable now than it was in the 1960s, his arguments on anomie have undeniable contemporary resonance, and, as Pearce has demonstrated, he has much to contribute to the discussion on the characteristics of a feasible democratic socialist society.
