Cult of the Individual

Although Durkheim focused much of his attention on the social, he did not dismiss the idea of individualism. Indeed, he believed that in modern society the individual has become sacred, and he called the modern form of collective conscience the cult of the individual. According to Durkheim, humans are constituted by two beings or selves: one is based on the isolated individuality of the body, and the other is based on the social. These two beings may be in a continual state of tension, and they are connected in that individuality develops as society develops. For example, it is only in modern society, characterized by the division of labour, that people even come to understand themselves as distinct individuals. Durkheim argued that individuality has both positive and negative consequences. Egoism, or the selfish pursuit of individual interests, is at odds with moral individualism, the ability to sacrifice self-interest for the rights of all other individual human beings.

Moral Education and Social Reform

Durkheim believed that society is the source of morality; therefore, he also believed that society could be reformed, especially through moral education. According to Durkheim, morality is composed of three elements: discipline, attachment, and autonomy. Discipline constrains egoistic impulses; attachment is the voluntary willingness to be committed to groups; and autonomy is individual responsibility. Education provides children with these three moral tools needed to function in society. Adults can also acquire these moral tools by joining occupational associations. According to Durkheim, these associations would include members of a particular occupation regardless of class position and could provide a level of integration and regulation, both of which tend to be weakened by the division of labour.

Criticisms

Durkheim is often criticized for being a functionalist and a positivist. However, his historical comparative methodology puts him at odds with functionalists and positivists who believe that invariant social laws exist that can explain social phenomenon across all societies. Durkheim does tend to emphasize the objective nature of social facts; thus, he neglects the subjective interpretations that social actors may have of a particular social phenomenon and the agency of individuals in general to control social forces. Furthermore, Durkheim's basic assumption about human nature – that people are driven by their passion for gratification that can never be satisfied – is not empirically substantiated in any of his work. Finally, Durkheim's understanding of the relationship between morality and sociology has been critiqued as being conservative.

Max Weber's Methodology

Max Weber (1864-1920) argued against abstract theory, and he favoured an approach to sociological inquiry that generated its theory from rich, systematic, empirical, historical research. This approach required, first of all, an examination of the relationships between, and the respective roles of, history and sociology in inquiry. Weber argued that sociology was to develop concepts for the analysis of concrete phenomena, which would allow sociologists to then make generalizations about historical phenomena. History, on the other hand, would use a lexicon of sociological concepts in order to perform causal analysis of particular historical events, structures, and processes. In scholarly practice, according to Weber, sociology and history are interdependent.

Weber contended that understanding, or verstehen, was the proper way of studying social phenomena. Derived from the interpretive practice known as hermeneutics, the method of verstehen strives to understand the meanings that human beings attribute to their experiences, interactions, and actions. Weber construed verstehen as a methodical, systematic, and rigorous form of inquiry that could be employed in both macro- and micro-sociological analysis.

Weber's formulation of causality stresses the great variety of factors that may precipitate the emergence of complex phenomena such as modern capitalism. Moreover, Weber argued that social scientists, unlike natural scientists, must take into account the meanings that actors attribute to their interactions when considering causality. Weber, furthermore, sought a middle ground between nomothetic (general laws) and idiographic (idiosyncratic actions and events) views in his notion of a probabilistic adequate causality.

Weber's greatest contribution to the conceptual arsenal of sociology is known as the ideal type. The ideal type is basically a theoretical model constructed by means of a detailed empirical study of a phenomenon. An ideal type is an intellectual construct that a sociologist may use to study historical realities by means of their similarities to, and divergences from, the model. Note that ideal types are not utopias or images of what the world ought to look like.

Weber urged sociologists to reflect on the role of values in both research and the classroom. When teaching, he argued, sociologists ought to teach students the facts, rather than indoctrinating them to a particular political or personal point of view. Weber did argue, however, that the values of one's society often help to decide what a scholar will study. He contended that, while values play this very important role in the research process, they must be kept out of the collection and interpretation of data.