Emile Durkheim Quotes About Reality

• Sociological method as we practice it rests wholly on the basic principle that social facts must be studied as things, that is, as realities external to the individual. There is no principle for which we have received more criticism; but none is more fundamental. Indubitably for sociology to be possible, it must above all have an object all its own. It must take cognizance of a reality which is not in the domain of other sciences... there can be no sociology unless societies exist, and that societies cannot exist if there are only individuals.

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  Emile Durkheim

  5195

• Religious representations are collective representations which express collective realities.

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  Emile Durkheim

  Emile Durkheim (2000). “The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life”, p.12, Library of Alexandria

  4790

• Reality seems valueless by comparison with the dreams of fevered imaginations; reality is therefore abandoned.

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  Emile Durkheim

  Emile Durkheim (2005). “Suicide: A Study in Sociology”, p.216, Routledge

  1755

• Society is not a mere sum of individuals. Rather, the system formed by their association represents a specific reality which has its own characteristics... The group thinks, feels, and acts quite differently from the way in which its members would were they isolated. If, then, we begin with the individual, we shall be able to understand nothing of what takes place in the group.

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  Emile Durkheim

  4735

• From top to bottom of the ladder, greed is aroused without knowing where to find ultimate foothold. Nothing can calm it, since its goal is far beyond all it can attain. Reality seems valueless by comparison with the dreams of fevered imaginations; reality is therefore abandoned.

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  Emile Durkheim

  Emile Durkheim (2005). “Suicide: A Study in Sociology”, p.216, Routledge

  666

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