© 2002 – Routledge
Durkheim's sociological thought is based on the premise that the world cannot be known as a thing in itself, but only through representations, rough approximations of the world created either individually or collectively. This set of papers by leading Durkheimians from Britain, America and continental Europe is the first concentrated attempt to understand what he meant by representations, how his understanding of the term was influenced by Kant and by neo-Kantians like Charles Renouvier and how his use of the concept in his work developed over time. By arguing that his use of representations at the the core of Durkheim's sociological thought, this book makes a unique contribution to Durkheimian studies which have recently been dominated by positivist and functionalist interpretations, and reveals a thinker very much in tune with contemporary developments in philosophy, linguistics and sociology.
1. Hayek and After 2. Conflicts in Social Science 3. Political Thought of Andre Gorz 4. Corruption, Capitalism and Democracy 5. Freedom and Culture in Western Society 6. Freedom in Economics 7. Against Politics 8. Max Weber and Michel Foucault 9. The Political Economy of Civil Society and Human Rights 10. On Durkheim’s Elementary Forms of Religious Life 11. Classical Individualism 12. The Age of Reasons 13. Individualism in Modern Thought 14. Property and Power in Social Theory 15. Wittgenstein and the Idea of a Critical Social Theory 16. Marxism and Human Nature 17. Goffman and Social Organization 18. Situating Hayek 19. The Reading of Theoretical Texts 20. The Nature of Capital 21. Beyond Pessimism of the Intellect 22. Durkheim and Representations