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Pacific Sociological Association Collective Consciousness, Morphology, and Collective Representations: Durkheim's Sociology of Knowledge, 1894-1900 Author(s): Dénes Némedi Reviewed work(s): Source: Sociological Perspectives, Vol. 38, No. 1, Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Émile Durkheim's "The Rules of Sociological Method" (Spring, 1995), pp. 41-56 Published by: University of California Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1389261 . Accessed: 14/01/2012 15:32 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of California Press and Pacific Sociological Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Sociological Perspectives. http://www.jstor.org Persctives Sociological Copyright 01995 PacificSociologicalAssociation Vol. 38, No. 1, pp. 41-56 ISSN0731-1214 COLLECTIVECONSCIOUSNESS, MORPHOLOGY,AND COLLECTIVE REPRESENTATIONS: Durkheim's Sociology of Knowledge, 1894-1900 DENES NEMEDI EOtvOsLorknd TudomAnyegyetem ABSTRACT: Thispapergives anovemiew ideasconcerning of Durkheim's in thebroadsensein theperiodindicated It showsthatthenotion knowledge andtheprinciple consciousness wasabandoned, of morphological of collective determinism was retained,largelyfor rhetoricalpurposes.Durkheim's statements attesttoa slowdriftawayfromtheconception which contradictory dividessocietyintotwoparts,onedetermining theother.It is shownthatthe earlier notionofcollective Durkheim conceptualizations. representation replaces as constituting a realmof socialfactscollective considered representations thesocialsphereparexcellence. Thenotionof collective indeed, representations todemonstrate theindependence playeda crucialrolein Durkheim's attempts of sociology. Method("TheRules")was written as part of an Durkheim'sTheRulesof Sociological extensive body of researchactivity.Durkheim'spublishedworks reflectonly parts of his vast program.Whilehe was in Bordeaux(1887-1902),he investigatedsuicide, family, crime, punishment, and religion, as he notes in the introduction to his lectureson socialismin 1895(Durkheim1928:11). He also gave lectureson education and politics. We know only half of this work-much of it is lost forever. The statements in TheRulesneed to be comparedand contrastedwith remarksmade in these works. In this paper, I analyze three central ideas of the Durkheimian sociology of knowledge (collective consciousness, morphology, and collective representations)in this broadercontext of which TheRulesformsonly a minorpart. In particular,I show how these ideas developed and were transformedafter the publicationof TheTheDivisionof Laborin Society("TheDivision').The typology of mechanicaland organicsolidaritydeveloped in the latterbook is well-known and I will not present it here. * Directall correspondenceto: D6nes N6medi E6tvts Lorind Tudominyegyetem,SzociologiaiIntezet,University of Budapest,BudapestVII,PollackMihAlyt6r10,H-1446BudapestP.O.B.394,Hungary. SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECIIVESVolume38, Number 1, 1995 42 COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESSAF EK 1893 It can be presumed that while writing TheDivision,Durkheimwas uneasy with the original typology of mechanical solidarity (resulting from collective consciousness)and organicsolidarity(resultingfromthe division of labor).He had partially modified it by the time he completed the book, most overtly in the Afterthe publicationof the The concludingchapter(Durkheim[189311984:339-340). Division,he abandoned the whole typology and it never appeared again in his writings in a theoreticallysignificantway. The notion of collective consciousness was modified, too, as Parsons pointed out (1949.320).It was not abandoned completely, but as I will demonstrate, it was not subsequently used in a theoreticallyprecise sense. In TheRules,Durkheimdeclaresthat there are phenomena which are different from organic ones, since they consist of representationsand actions (1982:52).' Elsewherein the same text, he characterizescollectiveconsciousnessas the totality of representationswhich are collectivein the sense that they arepresent in several minds. He used "collectiveconsciousness"in this way in a famous note which was subsequently invoked by those who saw in Durkheima theoreticianof the group mind: In this senseandforthesereasonswe canspeakof a collectiveconsciousness distinctfromindividualconsciousnesses. Tojustifythisdistinctionthereis no need to hypostatisethe collectiveconsciousness; it is somethingspecialand must be designatedby a specialterm, simply becausethe states which constitute it differ specificallyfrom those which make up individual consciousnesses. Thisspecificityarisesbecausethey arenot formedfromthe same elements.(1982:145)2 This is a decisive departurefrom the use of the term in TheDivision.As it is used here, "collectiveconsciousness"is not a specificmode of integration(opposed to the division of labor,as it was in TheDivision),but a generalcondition of society. This concept of collective consciousness reappeared again and again in Durkheim'swritings of the 1990s.The most detailed explicationcan be found in the first chapterof Book Imof Suicide,where Durkheimconsiders methodological questions.Here, he speaks of society as "a psychical existence of a new species"3 which has "its own manner of thinking and feeling"([1897]1951:310)4 and which is "essentially ... made up of representations"([1897]1951:312).5 In the course of the slow change in Durkheim'sthought, religion acquireda paramountposition and the new concept of "collectiveconsciousness"was developed in accordance with the new role of religion as a centralexample.As Durkheimsays, "Religion is in a word the system of symbols by means of which society becomes conscious of itself; it is the characteristic way of thinking of collective existence" ([1897]1951:316).6 The "socialbeing"has a certainexteriorityin its relationsto the individualsand materializesin things-in independent realities-and it shows itself in the free andColUctieReptsentations in Durkheim Coecte Consciousness, Morphology, 43 currents of collective life (Durkheim [1897]1991:355).Exteriority means that "there is not one of all the single centersof consciousnesswho makeup thegreatbodyof the nation, to whom the collectivecurrentis not almostwholly exterior,since each containsonly a spark of i't ([1897]1951:316).7This formulation is obviously diffetent from the one contained in The Division. There, "collective consciousness," in the case of mechanical solidarity, meant that there was a set of elements which was present in each individual consciousness. Here, the only critetion of collectiveness which Durkheim thought to be important was that the element should not be bound to only one particular consciousness. The implication of this drawn in the preceding quotation was that no particular individual consciousness could comprise the totality of the "collective current."8 Durkheim uses several related terms to denote "collective" phenomena. Some of them are terms which have a broader meaning with no specific reference to psychic processes or consciousness (e.g., "social current," "collective tendencies," "social or collective being") but which are used by him in a context implying this; some of them, however ("social consciousness," "common consciousness," "collective representations") make explicit reference to the psychic. This terminological indeteiminacy suggests that Durkheimabandonedthe specifictheoryof the collectiveconsciousness,but retained,as a generalmethodological principle,thatideasform social the context. partof THE PRINCIPLE OF MORPHOLOGICAL DE''EKMINATION AFI'EK 1893 In The Division, Durkheim supposed that there was a general morphological or socio-ecological determination of ideas. In its general form, the thesis was rather difficult to maintain. The overall theory supposed that a belief system (collective consciousness) and a particular morphological constellation (division of labor) were functional alternatives. It was difficult, however, to understand how two orders of phenomena could provide alternativemechanisms of integration, if one of them was determinedcausallyby the other.However, the incompatibility of the causal and functional principles did not disturb Durkheim very much in TheDivision.And since the book is not very tightly organized, the problem is not obvious. The message the book conveyed was Durkheim's commitment to a deterministic approach to consciousness: Most of our states of consciousness would not have occurred among men isolated form one another and would have occurred completely differently among people grouped together in a differentway. Thus they derive not from the psychologicalnature of man generally,but from the way in which men, once they associate together, exert a reciprocal effect upon one another, accordingto their number and proximity.Products of thelifeof thegroup,it is the natureof thegroupalonethatcanexplainthestatesof consciousness ([1893]1984:287, emphasisin original)9 44 SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVESVolume38, Number 1, 1995 The disapearanceof the central tenets of TheDivision,the models of mechanical and organicsolidarity,opened up the possibility of developing a detailed theory of morphologicaldeterminism.Yet, Durkheimdid not exploit this possibility,in largepartbecause it was incompatiblewith some othertheoreticalchanges he had made in the meantimethat gave rise to a fundamentalconflict. In The Rules, Durkheim stressed that society consists of representations. Durkheim'sgeneral theoreticalorientationled him to reject any position which would isolate the representationsfromother things,which would makea separate world (unmondea part)of them (1898-99:420). Separatingsome socialelements,and them as the considering conditioning "morphological"sphere, was incompatible with this idea. A consistent morphologicaldeterminismalong these lines would lead to a "two world theory"-as representedby the later Germansociology of knowledge.10But, if society consists of representations,if representationsare the only "world,"so to speak, it is difficultto say what is cause and what is effect. Durkheimproduced many confusing statements and dubious formulationsas a consequence of, and in the course of, his slow resolutionof the conflictbetween the principleof morphologicaldeterminismand his emergingconceptionof social life as made of representations.In TheRules,for example, he says: "Collective representations,emotions and tendencies have not as their causes certain states of consciousness of individuals,but the conditions under which the body social as a whole exists"(1982:131)." Takenout of context,this seems to be a clearformula for morphological determinism: the body is the morphological stuff, the representationsare caused by its "conditions."But the largerargumentin which the statement appears was a justificationof his anti-individualistmethodology. And in this argument,the "conditionsof the social body" to which he refersare not a distinct sphere of morphologicalfacts but ratherthe totality of antecedent collective states which generated the present constellation, which include representations. The same confusionreappearedin his lectureson socialism,at the point at which he justified his interest in socialist conceptions whose scientific and theoretical value he doubted. He saw two reasons to study socialism."First,one can hope that it will aid us in understandingthe social conditionswhich gave rise to it. For precisely because it derives from certain conditions, socialism manifests and expresses them in its own way, and thereby gives us another means of viewing them" ([192811962:42). On the other hand, if one wishes to dispute the socialist doctrine, "socialism must not be considered in the abstract, outside of every conditionof time and place.On the contrary,it is necessaryto relateit to the social In these quotations,there are two setting in which it was borne"([1928]1962:44). distinctconceptionsof the relationshipof ideas and socialstates. On the one hand, Durkheimsupposed that there is a causalrelationshipsuch that one can inferthe causes (socialconditions)fromthe effects (socialistdoctrines).On the other hand, he saw an expressiverelationshipbetween the two. It was never explainedin detail, however, how certain socialist ideas expressed concrete conditions (cf. Filloux 1977:301). andCollective in Durkheim Collective Consciousness, Morphology, Representations 45 As I have noted, the idea of morphological determinism was gradually softened and its use was reduced to rhetorical purposes. The resulting generality and indeterminacy makes it difficult to discuss its theoretical content (cf. Birnbaum 1%9:7-9).Durkheim did not bother to clarify the issue-his interest was elsewhere. But there were two occasions where he felt it important to state his position. His statements, however, are seemingly contradictory. The first occasion was in a review of Labriola. That was one of the rare cases in which he openly confronted Marxist positions.12 Labriola had also developed a morphological determinist theory, and Durkheim believed that he had to distinguish his position from Labriola's. He also saw that his own sociological determinism could be confused with some Marxian ideas. He explained his own view as follows: We believe it a fruitful idea that social life must be explained not by the conception of it formed by those who participatein it, but by the profound causes which escape their consciousness.We also thinkthat these causes must be sought mainly in the way in which individuals associating together are formedin groups. (1982:171)'1 However, he added, the Marxian scheme of basis/superstructure was unacceptable to him, and he explained why: "we know of no means of reducing religion to economics" (1982:173).14 Yet only two years later, he wrote an introductory note to the subsection "morphologiesociale"in the Annie sociologiquein which he developed a conception which was, at first sight, very close to the ideas of Labriola's he had previously criticized: Sociallife rests upon a substratumdeterminatein both size and form.It is made up of the mass of individualswho constitutesociety,the mannerin which they have settled upon the earth, the nature and configurationof those things of all kinds which affect collective relationships.... On the other hand, the constitution of this substratum directly or indirectly affects all social phenomena,just as all psychologicalphenomenaare linked eitherobliquelyor immediatelyto the conditionof the brain.(1982:241)"5 But there are at least two ways in which Durkheim's position is profoundly different from the Marxist theory as well as from the "classical" German sociology of knowledge. On the one hand, Durkheim says nothing about the specific nature of the social phenomena which are affected by the "substratum." The term itself is vague: it is very likely that everything except the demographic characteristics and spatial distribution of the population should be included under the social phenomena. There is at least a vague hint that consciousness and "knowledge" elements form an important part of the substratum. The dividing line between two parts, substratum and social phenomena, does not separate consciousness from 46 SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVESVolume38, Number 1,1995 the "material"aspects of society. Accordingto Durkheim,the two could not be separated,and,therefore,he did not believe that there could be a purely "material" substratumdetermining a purely "ideal"sphere of consciousness. His research remained free from this kind of dualism. On the other hand, the notion of "substratum"is very vaguely defined, and it is questionablewhether Durkheim was thinkingof morphologicalfacts as social facts (see Alexander1982:253-4). The last sentence in the quotation above, which states that the relationshipbetween morphologicalphenomena and social life is similar to that of brain and mind, formulates a thesis which I discuss in the next section. However, note that Durkheim,by analogicalargument,excludes morphologicalphenomena fromthe social domain. The incompatibilityof the principleof morphologicaldeterminism(which was in any case never examinedin detailby Durkheim)with the thesis that everything in society is made up of representationswas never discussed explicitly.But the conflictwas, in a fashion,resolved:the principleof morphologicaldeterminismwas slowly weakened, but not abandoned altogether.Unfortunately,the documentation of this slow drift is hindered by the superficialsimilarity of the idea of morphological determinism to the characteristic Durkhpimian tenet of the autonomy of social facts. Because Durkheimwas on only one occasion directly confronted with a theory which fervently afirmed the idea of morphological determinismin its "materialist" form,he did not feel a need to develop his position in detail16 Subsequent commentaryon the principlehas inadvertentlydistorted matters in anotherway. Durkheim'scommentatorsin the 1970sand 1980swere very much preoccupiedwith relatinghis ideas to those of the many Marxismsand therefore overlookedthe historicalspecificityor context of his arguments.In the 1890s,when Durkheimwas speaking of consciousness and knowledge,his main insights were formulated not in terms of collective consciousness or of morphological determinismbut in terms of collectiverepresentations. THE PROBLEMOF REPRESENTATIONS The word "representation"occurs frequentlyin the writings of Durkheim.In the 1890s,he used the term "collectiverepresentations"more and more frequentlyas a scientificconcept.The development of his ideas about collectiverepresentations was very importantto the theoreticalreorientationwhich led to his ethnological was accepted in French vernacular studies of religion.The word "reprsentation" and philosophicallanguage. Littr6(1968,6:1379-1381)distinguishes 13 meanings of it. In the present context, two of them are important:the "active"moment of and the "result"of representation(image), which representation(actionderepresenter) are also distinguished in Lalande'svocabulary (actede se reprenterquelquechose It is believed that the philosophical (1960:920-922). againstcequiestpresenta l'esprit) of the word back to Leibniz (who usage goes complemented the traditional = = corerspondance"). "se with TheFrench "reprsentation meaning repreenter imaginer" in Durkheim andCollectieRepresentaions Collective Consciousness, Morphology, 47 and the two terms were considered term was translatedby Wolffas "Vorstellung" as equivalent.17 Reprsentatinis a centralterm in Renouvier,Taine,and Hamelin.'8 The fact that Durkheim uses the word frequently is in no way specific or significant.'9The curious double meaning of the word ("ambiguousassimilation of the knowing instrument and the known thing";Bohannan1960:79cf. Lukes 1973:7)was not specificto Durkheim,either. in an early book review (Durkheim Durkheim used the word representation but its use did not became frequent until after [1893]1984when [1887]1975:161) he came to the conclusionthat socialphenomena"aremade up of representations" and representationsare to be regardedas social facts (Durkheim[1895]1988a:97)20 However, the conception in TheRuleswas ratherweak, even if the word was used relativelyfrequently(Alexander1982:483).The first substantialdiscussion was in Suicide(Durkheim[1897]1991:345 ff.) and the concept was later developed in an independent essay (Durkheim[189811965). Durkheim'sdetailedexplicationof the term"collectiverepresentation"coincides with the disintegrationof the originalsense of "collectiveconsciousness"and with The growing the weakening of morphological determinism (Lukes 1973:229-230).21 importanceof the term "collectiverepresentation"allowed Durkheimto give a more detailed and better organizedpicture of social thought than he was able to do with the one-dimensional and crude concept of "collective consciousness" The introductionand frequentuse of the termwas 1984:532-533). (Beillevaire-Bensa crucial for Durkheim.It helped him to avoid the dualism of materialfacts and consciousness and the necessity of supposing a causal relationshipbetween the two. Facts,which are consideredas "material"things in other theories,are "made up" of representations according to Durkheim (and, on the other hand, representationsare just as external and thing-like as so-called materialfacts, cf. Turner 1983-84:52-53).22 The explication of the theory of collective representationwas connected to Durkheim'srepeated effoits to demonstratethe right of sociology to the status of autonomousscience.The essay, which is his most importantfromthis point of view, dealsextensivelywith the psychologicaltheoryof representations-in fact,this part of the essay is much longer than that devoted to collective-that is, socialrepresentations.This is highly symptomaticwith respect to Durkheim'saims:he refetnedto psychologyevery time he needed an exampleof successfulemancipation of science from philosophy and general speculation (e.g., [1895]1988a:122, 234).23 Here,the lengthy analysisof individualrepresentationshas the same function. Durkheimdiscusses in great detail psychologicalepiphenomenalism,which by this time was no longer alive in the form representedbybHuxley and Maudsley but had reappearedin a modified version in Jamesand Rabier.He believes that the memory and the faculty of associationcannot be understoodif one supposes, as the epiphenomenalists do, that the mind is identical with the actual physiological, nervous state ([1898]1965:2-23).This extended (and, in the Durkheimian sense, dialectical) discussion comes to the conclusion that psychologicalphenomena constitute an independent realmof reality: 48 SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVESVolume38, Number 1,1995 Ifrepresentations,once they exist,continueto exist in themselveswithout their existence being perpetually dependent upon the disposition of the neural centres,if they have the power to reactdirectlyupon each otherand to combine accordingto their own laws, they are then realitieswhich, while maintaining an intimaterelationwith their substratum,are to a certainextent independent of it (Durkheim[189811965:23). Durkheim's reasoning here is analogical. He supposed that collective representations were independent of the totality of individual minds in the same way as the mind is independent of brain;if for this reason psychology was properly considered to be independent of physiology, sociology should be independent of psychology too: The conceptionof the relationshipwhich unites the socialsubstratumand the sociallife is at every point analogousto that which undeniablyexists between the physiologicalsubstratumand the psychic life of individuals,if that is, one is not going to deny the existenceof psychologyin the propersense of the word. The same consequences should then follow on both sides. The independence, the relative externalityof social facts in relationto individuals,is even more immediatelyapparentthan is that of mentalfactsin relationto the cerebralcells ([18981965:34). Durkheim was fond of saying in this context that the whole was more than the sum of its parts (e.g.[1895]1988a:195).24 He does so here as well: Representationallife cannotbe dividedamongand ascribedto particularneural elements,since severalof these elements combinefor its generation;butit could notexistwithoutthewholeformedby theirunion,just as thecollective couldnotexist withoutthewholeformedby theunionof individuals. Neither the one nor the other is made up of particularpartsthat can be attributedto the correspondingparts of theirrespectivesubstrata([1898]1965:27-8, emphasisin the original). The analogy of the brain-mind relationship with the relationship of psychological and social phenomena25 forced Durkheim to change the sense of the term "substratum." Whereas earlier he regarded the substratum as belonging to the social sphere, here he was led to declare that the totality of individuals and individual representations (substratcollectif),which constitute the necessary basis of social life, are outside of it. Of course, he was not speaking here of substratum in the earlier, material sense-that is, of the soil, its characteristics, of population and its territorial repartition. The real substratum of society is constituted by individual representations. These are the preconditions of social life, which cannot be explained by them:26 Also,while it is throughthe collectivesubstratumthatcollectivelifeis connected to the rest of the world, collective life is not absorbed in it. It is at the same andCollective Collective in Durkheim Consciousness, Morphology, Representations 49 time dependent on and distinct from it, as is the function of the organ. (Durkheim[1898]1965:30) In this essay, Durkheim gave an extra-social interpretation to the term "substratum." He conceived it as the totality of individuals who have body and mind, but without taking into consideration the social bonds which unite them. This step was necessary to insist on the change in meaning of "collective representations" (see above). As these latter constitute the specific social element which has a peculiar and autonomous mode of movement, it was important to reduce everything which did not belong to them to the status of mere preconditions of society: [T]hebasicmatterof the socialconsciousnessis in close relationwith the number of socialelementsand the way in which they aregroupedand distributed,etc.that is to say, with the nature of the substratum.But once a basic number of representationshas thus been created,they become,for the reasons which we have explained,partiallyautonomousrealitieswith their own way of life.They have the power to attractand repeleach otherand to formamongstthemselves various syntheses, which are determinedby their naturalaffinitiesand not by the condition of their matrix[I'tat du milieuau sein duquelellesevoluent].As a consequence,the new representationsborn of these syntheses have the same nature;they are immediatelycaused by other collective representationsand not by this or that characteristicof the social structure([1898]1965:30-31). This conclusion implies that collective representations constitute the most important class of things which should be analyzed by sociology. Durkheim considers representations as things in the most exact sense of the word. In chapter one of Book III of Suicide(a chapter where the basic ideas of the 1898 essay were already formulated), he refutes those who take collective tendencies or passions (which are here related to representations) only metaphorically (or in a nominalistic sense). These are, he repeats, really things: things sui generisand not mereverbalentitiesthat they may be measured,their relative sizes compared,as is done with the intensity of electric currents or luminousfoci ([1897]1951:310).27 Collective representations should be investigated in a naturalistic manner-that was Durkheim's intention. This implies that he did not conceive them as the utterances of a gigantic collective subject-even if he sometimes used metaphors which were ambiguous in this respect. Durkheim's research intentions are clearly stated in the second foreword to the The Rules in 1901. There, he defended the thesis that society, while it is made up of representations, conserves its externality to the individuals, and the thesis that its laws are different from the laws of psychology: 50 SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVESVolume38, Number 1,1995 Whatshould be done is to investigate,by comparingmythicalthemes,legends and populartraditions,and languages,howsocialreprsentations areattracted to or exclude eachother,amalgamate withoraredistinguishable fromeachother,etc. (1982:4142, emphasisadded).8 Durkheim conceived the research in the laws of motion of collective representation in a classical positivist manner. This conception still dominated the 1898 essay and, in a lesser extent, the 1901 Second edition preface as well. Basic to this research and to this shift of emphasis was the idea that collective representations constitute a specific domain, they are independent beings and not just the epiphenomena of other, more real beings. Durkheim's mode of expression reflects this conception. He uses abundantly expressions taken over from physics: attraction, repulsion, natural affinity, causal relations, fusion, and differentiation. However, around the turn of century, he was drifting toward a less physicalist conception of research as exemplified in his first ethnological papers (cf. Durkheim [1898]1969b):he came to conceive the structure produced by the mutual connections of collective representations as a special kind of grammar. Durkheim always stressed that collective representations should be conceived independently from the subjects who have them. There is no expressive relationship between individual mind and collective representations. The latter are not thoughts of individuals. However, Durkheim could not abandon totally the idea that representations should be, in some sense, the thoughts of someone. Formulations that could be found already in the The Rules reappeared again and again: he perceived society as a new kind of mind, a group consciousness. Talking of the sui generis reality of society which results from the combination of conscious beings but cannot be reduced to individual minds, he added: In orderto understandit as it is one must take the aggregatein its totalityinto consideration.It is that which thinks,feels, wishes, even though it can neither wish, feel, nor act except throughindividualminds. ([1898]1965:26) He did not arrive at a comprehensive group mind theory, however, because he considered collective representations to be at the same time something similar to physical objects. Therefore, he did not need to produce a conception of society which thinks and which has a will of its own. His commitment to this "elements" model of the collective consciousness appears early. In The Division, he conceived collective consciousness as the sum of identical elements in individual consciousnesses-that is, he did not assume that it is a colossal mind. The contradictory character of Durkheim's formulations can be seen in Suicide,too, where the group mind analogy is interwoven with a research program which postulates the similarity of collective representations to physical objects. Here, he takes religious representations as the most typical example of collective representations: andCollective in Durkheim Collective Consciousness, Morphology, Representations 51 The power thus imposed on his respect and become the objectof his adoration is society, of which the gods were only the hypostaticform.Herethen is a great group of states of mind which would not have originatedif individualstates of consciousness had not combined,and which result fromthis union and are to those which derive fromindividualnatures(1951:312).29 superadded To these phrases suggesting a group mind theory, Durkheim added on the next page: Not only have we admittedthat socialstates differqualitativelyfromindividual states, but that they are, in a certain sense, exteriorto individuals.Similarly, we have not hesitated to compare this exteriorityto that of physical forces ([1897]1991:353)30 Durkheim's position here is the by-product of his scientific strategy. Psychology was regarded by him as the example of successful institutionalization. Therefore, sociology should follow the same route and should become an independent science, in the same way. Two requirements follow from this strategy. The first is that a specific object area should be defined;31the second is that sociology's achievements should be comparable to those of psychology. The replacement of the category of mind with that of society was an obvious solution to these demands. As society and mind had similar categorical positions, it was but a small step to suppose something which is indeed similar to "group mind." But, as suggested earlier, Durkheim's research logic was more compatible with the idea that collective representations are quasi-physical thing-like objects than with the conception of society as a gigantic subject. Fortunately, he followed the first approach in his ethnological studies. As indicated earlier, this intensive research resulted in a less physicalist conception of representations. But Durkheim did not revive the "group mind" motif of his earlier writings. In fact, the naturalistic conception of representations was a step toward the famous theoriesociologiquede la connaissancewhich was Durkheim's final achievement in The ElementaryFormsof ReligiousLife. NOTES 1. "... puisqu'ilsconsistenten repr6sentationset en actions"(Durkheim[1895]1988a:97). 2. "Voila dans quel sense et pour quelle raisons on peut et on doit parler d'une consciencecollectivedistinctedes consciencesindividuelles.Pourjustifiercette distinction, il n'est pas n6cessaired'hypostasierla premiere;elle est quelque chose de sp6cialet doit etredesign6eparun termesp6cial,simplementparceque les 6tatsqui la constituentdifferent specifiquementde ceux qui constituent les consciences particuli6res.Cette sp6cificit6leur vient de ce qu'ilsne sont pas form6sdes memes 616ments"(Durkheim[1895]1988a:196). 3. "un etre psychique d'une esplce nouvelle"([1897]1991:350). 4. "sa maniereproprede penser et de sentir"(Durkheim1897a:350). 52 SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVESVolume38, Number 1, 1995 5. "... est essentiellementfaitede repr6sentations'(Durkheim Another [1897]1991:352). conciseformulationin the lectureson moraleducation:Mais la soci&t6, ce n'est pas l'oeuvre des individus qu'elle comprenda telle ou telle phase de l'histoire;ce n'est pas davantage le sol qu'elle occupe;c'est, avant tout, un ensemble d'id6eset de sentiments,de certaines mani6resde voir et de sentir, une certaine physionomie intellectuelleet morale qui est distinctive du groupe tout entier. La soci6t6 est, avant tout, une conscience: c'est la consciencede la collectivit6.C'estdonc cette consciencecollectivequ'ilfautfairepasserdans l'amede l'enfant"(Durkheim[1925]1963:236). 6. "Lareligion,c'est,en dEfinitive,le syst6mede symbolesparlesquelsla soci6t6prend a conscience d'elle-m8me;c'est la mani,re de penser propre l'atre collectif"(Durkheim [1897]1991:352). la grandemassedela nation,il n'enest 7. "Detouteslesconsciences qui composent particuli'res en totalite,puisquechacune aucuneparrapport a laquellele courantcollectifne soitextrieurpresque d'ellesn'encontient (Durkheim[1897]1991:357, emphasisin the original). qu'uneparcelle" 8. Durkheim gives an important integrative role to this loosely defined "social or collectiveconsciousness."Speakingof religiousgroups,he says that they arewell integrated when religious belief is firm and well defined;there is an "opinioncommune" (Durkheim when people get their opinions ready-made([1897]1991:171). [1897]1991:158) 9. The most importantcontinuous argument written in the spirit of morphological determinism is the well-known chapter of The Divisionwhere Durkheim explains the rationalizationand generalizationof ideas by changes in the social milieu (Durkheim [189311984:229-233). and their role in German 10. On the "two world theories" ('Zwei-Welten-Theorien') sociology,see Lenk(1972). 11. "Lesrepr6sentations,les Emotions,les tendances collectives n'ont pas pour causes g6n6ratricescertains6tatsde la consciencedes particuliers,mais les conditionsou se trouve le corps social dans son ensemble"(Durkheim[1895]1988a:198). 12. Alexander(1982:250)overstatesthe issue when he says that Durkheimwas offering a theoreticalalternativeto Marxism.That was not his intention. He did not know Marx well and, therefore,it was not the Marxiantheory to which he opposed his general conception. 13. "Nous croyons f6conde cette id6e que la vie sociale doit s'expliquer,non par la conceptionque s'en fontceux qui y participent,maispardes causesprofondesqui 6chappent i la conscience: et nous pensons aussi que ces causes doivent etre recherch6es principalementdans la mani6re dont sont groupes les individus associ6s" (Durkheim [1897]1969a:250). 14. "Nous ne connaissonsaucun moyende reduirela religion[which was, according to Durkheimat that time, the most elementarysocial phenomenon]a l'economie" (Durkheim [1897]1969a:253). 15. "Lavie sociale repose sur un substratqui est d6termin6dans sa grandeurcomme dans sa forme.Ce qui le constitue, c'est la masse des individus qui composent la soci6t6, la mani6redont ils sont dispos6ssur le sol, la natureet la configurationdes choses de toute sorte qui affectentles relationscollectives.... D'un autrecot6,la constitutionde ce substrat affecte,directementou indirectementtous les ph6nom~nessociaux,de meme que tous les ph6nom6nespsychiques sont en rapports,m6diatsou immediats,avec l'6tatdu cerveau" (Durkheim[1899]1969c:181). in Durkheim andCollective Collective Consciousness, Representations Morphology, 53 16. Theconfusionwithin the Durkheimiangroupwas apparentin the article"Sociologie" written by Paul Fauconnet and MarcelMauss (and certainly in the GrandeEncyclopedie, approvedby Durkheim).There,afterproducingcontradictorystatements on the status of collective representations,they go on to formulateboth the rejectionand the affirmation of the morphologicaldeterministthesis:"Rienn'est vain comme de se demandersi ce sont les idees qui ont susciteles soci6t6sou si ce sont les societ6squi une fois formees,ont donne And then: "Carles naissanceaux idees collectives.Ce sont des ph6nom6nesinsEparables." representationscollectives ne doivent pas etre conques comme se d6veloppant d'ellesmemes, en vertu d'une sorte de dialectiqueinterne.... Les opinions, les sentiments de la collectivit6ne changent que si les 6tats sociaux dont ils dependent ont 6galementchang6" (Fauconnet-Mauss1901:163). 17. It is obvious that in the Germanterm,the originallink to the sense of representation as actingor speakingfor someone or something,on behalfof something (e.g.,the king who representsin his person the immortalprincipleof royalpower) is lost. 18. Hamelin was Durkheim's friend and colleague in Bordeaux and wrote a very delarepr6sentation. Hegelianbook with the title Essaisurleselementsprincipaux Representation there is Begriff, Idee,and Geistat the same time. On Hamelin'sand Durkheim'srelationship, see Strenski(1989)and N6medi (1991). 19. One need not to suppose, as Mestrovic (1988)does, that it was Schopenhauer's influencewhich inspiredDurkheimto use representation (Vorstellung). 20. Durkheim,of course, did not believe that collective representationsare or should be true representations. In The Rules, he separated knowledge as correct, scientific (sociological)representationsfromrepresentationsas socialfacts.Hirst'sproblemis a false problem:"In so far as it [i.e.,collective representation]is a mental phenomenon, an idea, he faces the threatthat it is an illusion,a misrecognitionof the real.But since it is the order of the realitself,the society-subjectcan only be a subjectwithout illusions,a subjectwhose ideas are pure knowledge"(Hirst1975:100). It is an exaggerationto suggest that Durkheim consideredsociety as a huge subject. 21. As "collectiveconsciousness"and "collectiverepresentations"in an exacttheoretical sense are not used by Durkheimat the same time, I find the common practiceof treating them as meaning the same or something similarto be baseless.The resultingidentification of the Durkheimiantermswith the modem conceptionof cultureis misleading,too. LaCapra, for example, believes that "collective representation ... primarily refered ... to the shared model or paradigmwhich functionedas a mode of explanationand justificationin society, especiallyas the core of the consciencecollectivewhich he treatedin his moralphilosophy as la morale"(LaCapra1972:266).Accordingto Nisbet, "collectiverepresentation... is but a phrasefor what most of us call more commonlytraditions,codes, and themes in culture" collective" and "representations collectives" (Nisbet 1974:88).Filloux sees that "conscience are different;both areinsertedby him in his multilevelmodelof determination:"lesrepresentations collectives ne sontque le premier de la conscience dontles institutions collective, degred'objectivation et le substratconstituent lesautresdegres"(i.e.,in the sense that the substratumis "below"the collectiverepresentations,collectiveconsciousnessis "above"them) (Filloux1977:115). The scheme is really ingenious, but it combines ideas and theories which were never adopted by Durkheimin this combination. 22. Becauserepresentationsare thing-like,it cannotbe said that the socialworld,which is of "ideal"characteraccordingto Durkheim,would be the emanationor "objectivation" of a transcendentspirit or spiritualbeing. "Assurement,on ne sauraittrop le r6p6ter,tout 54 SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVESVolume38, Number 1, 1995 ce qui est social consiste en repr6sentations, par cons6quent est un produit de repr6sentations.Seulement, ce devenir des repr6sentationscollectives, qui est la matifre memede la sociologie,neconsiste ies fondamentales pasdansuneralisationprogressedecertaines qui, d'abordobscurcieset voil6es par des id6es adventices,s'en affranchiraient peu Apeu pour devenir de plus en plus compl6tement elles-mmnes.Si des 6tats nouveaux se produisent,c'est,en grandepartie,parceque des 6tatsanciensse sont group6set combin6s" (Durkheim[1898]1969b:100, emphasisadded). 23. Durkheim'sproverbialanti-psychologismwas of a methodologicalkind. He never questioned the scientific character of psychology, whereas he believed that classical economics was essentially unscientific,"ideological"(Durkheim[1895]1988a:117 ff.).In his lectureson moraleducation,he repeatedlyand positively referredto recent psychological monographs-he did not do that very often on other occasions (Durkheim[1925]1963:114, 154,184,191).We must not forgetthat in his youth, he visited the psychologicallaboratory of Wundtin Leipzigand had very positive impressionsof it. 24. As Durkheimhimselfsaid, he took this banalityfromComte and his own Professor It was connectedto the statementthat of Philosophy,EmileBoutroux(Durkheim1907:403). the particularsciencesarebuilton those "below"but aredifferentand independentof them. 25. It reappearedin 1899in the note on socialmorphology(1982:241). 26. He warns his adversariesthat, if they do not accept the independenceof sociology, they will be forced to abandon the independence of psychology, too. 'Those, then, who accuse us of leaving social life in the air because we refuse to reduce it to the individual mindhave not, perhaps,recognizedallthe consequencesof theirobjection.Ifit werejustified it would apply just as well to the relations between mind and brain" (Durkheim [1898]1965:28). 27. "Ellessont si bien des choses sui generis, et non des entit6s verbales,qu'on peut leur grandeur relative, comme on fait pour l'intensit6de courants les mesurer,comparer emphasisadded). l6ectriquesou de foyers lumineux"(Durkheim[1897]1991:349, 28. "Ce qu'il faudrait,c'est chercher,par la comparaisondes themes mythiques, des sociales l6gendes et des traditionspopulaires,des langues, de quellefaon les repr&sentations s'appellentet s'excluent,fusionnentles unes dans les autresou se distinguent"(Durkheim [1901]1988b:85, emphasisadded). 29. "La puissance qui s'est ainsi impos6e A son [the individual's]respect et qui est devenue l'objet de son adoration,c'est la soci6t6,dont les Dieux ne furent que la forme hypostasi6e.La religion,c'est, en d6finitive,le systeme de symboles par lesquels la soci&t6 prendconscienced'elle-meme;c'est la manifrede penserpropre l'etrecollectif.VoilAdonc un vaste ensemble d'6tats mentaux qui ne se searient pas produits si les consciences particulieresne s'6taientpas unies, qui r6sultentde cette union et se sont surajout6sAceux qui d6riventdes naturesindividuelles"(Durkheim1897a:352-353). 30. The Spaulding-Simpsonversion is misleading."Nous n'avons pas seulementadmis que les 6tatssociauxdifferentqualitativementdes 6tatsindividuels,mais encorequ'ilssont, en un certainsens, exterieursaux individus.Meme nous n'avons pas craintde comparer cette ext6riorit6Acelle des forcesphysiques"([1897]1991:353). 31. 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