Durkheim claimed that modern society bases integration on the mutual benefits of the division of labour, but noted that the impersonal character of modern urban life caused alienation and feelings of anomie.

After the death of Reclus as well as the main proponents of Le Play's ideas, and with Émile Durkheim turning away from his early concept of social morphology, Paul Vidal de la Blache, who noted that geography " is a science of places and not a science of men ", remained the most influential figure of French geography.

It has been noted, at times with disapproval and amazement by many social scientists, that Durkheim traveled little and that, like many French scholars and the notable British anthropologist Sir James Frazer, he never undertook any fieldwork.

In another example of evolution of culture, Durkheim pointed to fashion, although in this case he noted a more cyclical phenomenon.

As the society, Durkheim noted there are several possible pathologies that could lead to a breakdown of social integration and disintegration of the society: the two most important ones are anomie and forced division of labor ; lesser ones include the lack of coordination and suicide.

In New Rules ... he noted that the functionalist approach, invented by Durkheim, treated society as a reality unto itself, not reducible to individuals.

Durkheim himself noted the importance of constructing concepts in the abstract ( e. g. " collective consciousness " and " social anomie ") in order to form workable categories for experimentation.

Durkheim was born in Épinal in Lorraine, coming from a long line of devout French Jews ; his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had been rabbis.

" Whilst the secondary role Marx plays in early American sociology may be attributed to Parsons, as well as to broader political trends, the dominance of Marxism in European sociological thought had long since secured the rank of Marx alongside Durkheim and Weber as one of the three " classical " sociologists.

The beliefs of a religion also reflecting the values are expressed in creeds, dogmas, and doctrines, and form what Durkheim calls a credo.

The word religion is sometimes used interchangeably with faith or belief system ; however, in the words of Émile Durkheim, religion differs from private belief in that it is " something eminently social ".

The sociologist Durkheim, in his seminal book The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, defined religion as a " unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things ".

Classical, seminal sociological theorists of the late 19th and early 20th century such as Durkheim, Weber, and Marx were greatly interested in religion and its effects on society.

Durkheim, Marx, and Weber had very complex and developed theories about the nature and effects of religion.

Durkheim defined religion as a clear distinction between the sacred and the profane, in effect this can be paralleled with the distinction between God and humans.

In The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, Durkheim ’ s first purpose was to identify the social origin and function of religion as he felt that religion was a source of camaraderie and solidarity.

Durkheim defined religion as

Out of those three concepts, Durkheim focused on the sacred, noting that it is at the very core of a religion.

Durkheim saw religion as the most fundamental social institution of humankind, and one that gave rise to other social forms.

Durkheim saw the religion as a force that emerged in the early hunter and gatherer societies, as the emotions collective effervescence run high in the growing groups, forcing them to act in a new ways, and giving them a sense of some hidden force driving them.

However, Durkheim also believed that religion was becoming less important, as it was being gradually superseded by science and the cult of an individual.

However, even if the religion was losing its importance for Durkheim, it still laid the foundation of modern society and the interactions that governed it.

And despite the advent of alternative forces, Durkheim argued that no replacement for the force of religion had yet been created ,.

Durkheim also argued that our primary categories for understanding the world have their origins in religion.

It is religion, Durkheim writes, that gave rise to most if not all other social constructs, including the larger society.

In his work, Durkheim focused on totemism, the religion of the aboriginal Australians and Native Americans.

Durkheim saw totemism as the most ancient religion, and focused on it as he believed its simplicity would ease the discussion of the essential elements of religion.

Durkheim ’ s work on religion was heavily criticized on both empirical and theoretical grounds by specialists in the field.

The most devastating critique came from Durkheim ’ s contemporary, Arnold van Gennep, an expert on religion and ritual, and also on Australian belief systems.

Here, Durkheim outlines how totemism within an Australian aboriginal religion is an example of how collective representations are enacted through religion.

Émile Durkheim ( drawing on the analogies between biological and social systems popularized by Herbert Spencer and others ) introduced the idea that diverse social institutions and practices played a role in assuring the functional integration of society through assimilation of diverse parts into a unified and self-reproducing whole.

From this position Durkheim helped reform the French school system and introduced the study of social science in its curriculum.

To that, Durkheim answered that any apparent cultural diversity is overridden by a larger, common, and more generalized cultural system, and the law.

Informed by his reading of Émile Durkheim, Gökalp concluded that Western liberalism, as a social system, was inferior to solidarism, because liberalism encouraged individualism, which in turn diminished the integrity of the state.

Functionalism concerns " the effort to impute, as rigorously as possible, to each feature, custom, or practice, its effect on the functioning of a supposedly stable, cohesive system ," The chief form of social conflict that Durkheim addressed was crime.

The principle problem is that of classical sociology, the issue of macro-micro linkage: as first articulated by French Sociologist Émile Durkheim, the question of how individuals within a social system influence and are influenced by the macrosocial level.

With that, Durkheim argues, we are left with the following three concepts: the sacred ( the ideas that cannot be properly explained, inspire awe and are considered worthy of spiritual respect or devotion ), the beliefs and practices ( which create highly emotional state — collective effervescence — and invest symbols with sacred importance ), and the moral community ( a group of people sharing a common moral philosophy ).

In it, Durkheim argues that religious beliefs require people to separate life into categories of the sacred and the profane, and that rites and rituals are necessary to mark the transition between these two spheres.

Collective consciousness was a term coined in psychology by the French sociologist Émile Durkheim ( 1858 – 1917 ) to refer to the shared beliefs and moral attitudes which operate as a unifying force within society.

Referencing the work of sociologists and anthropologists such as Émile Durkheim and Margaret Mead, he also used the book as a vehicle to present his theory that illness was culturally relative.

Émile Durkheim described anomie (, ) which is a state of relative normlessness or a state in which norms have been eroded.