Preface to Part I

Summary

In Part I of this book I will attempt to provide a detailed account of what Durkheim has to say about the concept of the common and collective consciousness based on the very detailed account that he gives of this concept in the first half of his book L'éducation morale (Moral Education). After refuting the claim that Durkheim abandoned the concept of the common or collective consciousness in his later writing— he in fact makes extensive use of this in his final book, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life—I will then try to answer the question how we should translate into English the French expression ‘la conscience collective ou commune’. Based on Durkheim's account of this concept in Moral Education I will argue that no meaning is lost if we simply translate this phrase as ‘the common or collective consciousness’ of society. I will further argue that we should always avoid the use of the term ‘conscience’ when translating this expression into English, but that it is especially important that we do this in the context of Durkheimian sociology because of the overtone that this term has of an individual or personal moral choice. By contrast, the idea of ‘consciousness’ – that we should all be fully and completely aware of the important social reasons why we act as we do – is key not only to Durkheim‧s concept of the common and collective consciousness of society but to his entire sociology too.