Thursday, June 26, 2014

The voice of Durkheim

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k127959h.r=durkheim.langEN

Here is a fascinating and unexpected tidbit from the history of modern social theory. It's been circulating on e-mail, and was passed on to me by Chad Goldberg.

Emile Durkheim's paper on "Value Judgments and Judgments of Reality" (included in Sociology and Philosophy) was originally a lecture given at the International Congress of Philosophy meeting in Bologna in 1911. It turns out that a recording of part of his conference presentation is available. If you'd like to hear Durkheim expounding his ideas in his own voice, you can listen to him HERE.

The text of "Jugements de valeur et jugements de réalité" is here.  The recorded portion is the paragraph running from p. 6 to p. 7.  (Or pp. 85-86 in the English-language version of Sociology and Philosophy.)

Yours for theory,
Jeff Weintraub