Chapter 7 - Durkheim’s Predecessors: Comte and Spencer

Summary

Chapter 7 treats two philosophers who directly influenced Durkheim: Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer. Looking at their use of the society–organism analogy, their versions of functional explanation and functional analysis, and their conceptions of what a scientific sociology must be like helps one to understand both the content of Durkheim's positions and why he held them. Three types of functional explanation employed by Comte are relevant: two forms of existential functional explanation as well as functional analysis, which makes no claims regarding the existence of what it analyzes but "explains" what it is by specifying the function it serves and showing how its features are suited to accomplishing that purpose without implying anything about how it originated or why it persists. The chapter argues that Comte and Spencer rely too heavily on the society–organism analogy, leading to an overly biologistic understanding of normative critique available to social pathologists.