The positive science of ethics in France: German influences onDe la division du travail social

What was Durkheim doing—in the sense of an intended social action—in writing De la Division du travail social? At least a part of the answer is that Durkheim's project was linguistic—i.e., he was attempting to replace an outworn vocabulary of Cartesian metaphysics with a more Germanic lexicon—one in which simplicity gave way to complexity, the abstract to the concrete, the ideal to the real, deduction to induction, rationalism to empiricism, and so on. To some extent, this was motivated by the superiority—widely acknowledged among intellectuals of the Third Republic—of German science and Protestant scientific education. But an additional motivation was Durkheim's belief that only a real, concrete entity—society as a “thing” (chose)—could provide an object worthy of the veneration of the “new man” of the Republic. Durkheim's attempt to construct a science of social facts was therefore itself subsidiary to another, “higher” purpose—i.e., the construction of a moral authority (real, concrete, complex) adequate to the needs of the Third French Republic. Rather than an end in itself, Durkheim's sociology should thus be seen as a means to other ends—i.e., the “construction” of a particular kind of “fact”—within a specific social and historical context.