THE DEFINITION OF SOCIOLOGY AND THE SOCIOLOGY OF DEFINITION - DURKHEIM RULES OF SOCIOLOGICAL METHOD AND HIGH-SCHOOL PHILOSOPHY IN FRANCE

Despite his attempts to break with philosophy and found a science of s ociety, Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) was involved with philosophy throug hout his career. Academic philosophy in France was a highly centralize d institution that produced professors capable of teaching a standard curriculum. These professors made up a significant portion of the audi ence whose support Durkheim hoped to win for his sociological project. The concepts of Pierre Bourdieu and the literature on the rhetoric of the human sciences can help reconstruct the field of academic philoso phy, Durkheim's relationship with it, and the ways in which he drew up on it to formulate his method and to persuade his philosophical collea gues. Durkheim's definition of the social fact in The Rules of Sociolo gical Method can only be understood in the context of French academic philosophy. (C) 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.