ABSTRACT
Collective memory is at the center of the debate about the relationship between individual memory and the memory as defined by one's participation in a group. The term was introduced by Maurice Halbwachs, who was a prominent French sociologist and wrote on a wide variety of topics, including statistics, Leibniz's philosophy, probability theory, religion, suicide, urbanism, the working class, and social morphology and psychology. The two major thinkers who made a strong impact on Halbwachs, and who present two opposite approaches to memory, are Bergson and Durkheim. While Bergson stressed the importance of introspection and individual reflection as the source of his theoretical method, Durkheim was interested in collective representations and argued for the social nature of our thought, pointing out the necessity of understanding any individual phenomenon within the society or larger collectivity.
