Deconstructing Durkheim: A Post-Post-Structuralist Critique

This study provides a close textual analysis of Durkheimian sociology from the standpoint of critical structuralism. Durkheim's social ontology is analyzed as a sociologistic theory of reality riven by an apparent tension between social determinism and individualism. This tension is probed to reveal its ultimate resolution in an absolute social determinism. This sociologistic social determinism is then scrutinized, as a potential affinity beween Durkheimianism and structuralism. It is demonstrated that Durkheim's ontological social determinism, while absolute, is coextensive with an ontological collective subjectivism. The author concludes that Durkheim's socio-ontology is wholly incompatible with structuralist socio-ontology. Durkheim's epistemology is analyzed as a sociological theory of knowledge, engendering an apparent tension between social relativism and scientific rationalism. This tension is examined to reveal its ultimate resolution in an absolute scientific rationalism. This sociological scientific rationalism is then scrutinized as a potential affinity between Durkheimianism and structuralism. (Publisher)