Editing Émile Durkheim (section)

==Early life and education==
David Émile Durkheim was born 15 April 1858 in [[Épinal]], [[Lorraine]], [[France]], to Mélanie (Isidor) and Moïse Durkheim,<ref>Jones, Robert Alun. 1986. "[http://durkheim.uchicago.edu/Biography.html Emile Durkheim: His Life and Work (1858-1917)]." Pp. 12–23 in ''Emile Durkheim: An Introduction to Four Major Works''. Beverly Hills, CA: [[SAGE Publishing|SAGE Publications]]. – via ''The Durkheim Pages'', [[University of Chicago]].</ref><ref>Tiryakian, Edward A. ''For Durkheim: Essays in Historical and Cultural Sociology''. London: [[Ashgate Publishing]]. {{ISBN|9780754671558}}. [https://books.google.com/books?id=Z61mk-BEEQ0C&pg=PA21 p. 21].</ref> coming into a long lineage of devout [[History of the Jews in France|French Jews]]. His parents had four other children: Israël (1845-1846),<ref group="lower-roman" name="mestro1993-23">{{harvp|Meštrović|1993|loc=[https://books.google.pl/books?id=lqGUxDs3K_UC&pg=PA23 p. 23]. "A visit to city hall yielded a fact hitherto overlooked by Durkheim's biographers, and unknown even to M. Halphen: Durkheim had an elder brother named Israël Desiré, who was born at 11 p.m., 5 January 1845, and who died on 17 September 1846."}}</ref> Rosine (1848-1930), Félix (1850-1889) and Céline (1851-1931).<ref name="Lettres">{{Cite book |last=Durkheim |first=Émile |title=Lettres à Marcel Mauss |date=1998 |publisher=PUF |isbn=978-2-13-049099-9 |editor-last=Besnard |editor-first=Philippe |edition=1re éd |series=Sociologies |location=Paris |pages=2-3, 5, 12, 23, 25, 41, 42 |language=French |trans-title=Letters to Marcel Mauss |editor-last2=Fournier |editor-first2=Marcel}}</ref> Durkheim came from a long line of [[rabbi]]s, stretching back eight generations,<ref group="lower-roman" name="mestro1993-26">{{harvp|Meštrović|1993|loc=p. 26}}</ref> including his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather<ref name="Poggi_1">Poggi, Gianfranco. 2000. ''Durkheim''. Oxford: [[Oxford University Press]]. {{ISBN|978-0-19-878087-8}}.</ref>{{Rp|1}} and began his education in a [[Yeshiva|rabbinical school]]. However at an early age he switched schools, deciding not to follow in his family's footsteps.<ref name="Calhoun2002-103">{{harvp|Calhoun|2002|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=6mq-H3EcUx8C&pg=PA103 p. 103]}}</ref><ref name="Poggi_1" />{{Rp|1}} In fact Durkheim led a completely secular life, whereby much of his work was dedicated to demonstrating that religious phenomena stemmed from social rather than divine factors. Nevertheless Durkheim did not sever ties with his family nor with the Jewish community.<ref name="Poggi_1" />{{Rp|1}} In fact many of his most prominent collaborators and students were Jewish, some even being blood relatives. For instance [[Marcel Mauss]], a notable social anthropologist of the prewar era, was his nephew.<ref name="Calhoun2002-107"/>

A precocious student, Durkheim entered the [[École normale supérieure (Paris)|École normale supérieure]] (ENS) in 1879, at his third attempt.<ref name="Calhoun2002-103" /><ref name="Poggi_1" />{{Rp|2}} The entering class that year was one of the most brilliant of the nineteenth century, as many of his classmates, such as [[Jean Jaurès]] and [[Henri Bergson]], went on to become major figures in France's intellectual history as well. At the ENS, Durkheim studied under the direction of [[Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges]], a [[Classics|classicist]] with a social-scientific outlook, and wrote his Latin [[dissertation]] on [[Montesquieu]].<ref>{{harvp|Bottomore|Nisbet|1978|p=8}}</ref> At the same time, he read [[Auguste Comte]] and [[Herbert Spencer]], whereby Durkheim became interested in a scientific approach to society early on in his career.<ref name="Calhoun2002-103" /> This meant the first of many conflicts with the [[Education in France|French academic system]], which had no [[social science]] curriculum at the time. Durkheim found [[Humanities|humanistic studies]] uninteresting, turning his attention from [[psychology]] and [[philosophy]] to [[ethics]] and, eventually, [[sociology]].<ref name="Calhoun2002-103" /> He obtained his ''[[agrégation]]'' in philosophy in 1882, though finishing next to last in his graduating class owing to serious illness the year before.<ref>{{harvp|Lukes|1985|p=64}}</ref>

The opportunity for Durkheim to receive a major academic appointment in Paris was inhibited by his approach to society. From 1882 to 1887 he taught philosophy at several provincial schools.<ref name="Calhoun2002-104">{{harvp|Calhoun|2002|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=6mq-H3EcUx8C&pg=PA104 p. 104]}}</ref> In the 1885-6 school year he visited Germany, where he travelled and studied sociology at the universities of [[University of Marburg|Marburg]], [[Humboldt University of Berlin|Berlin]] and [[Leipzig University|Leipzig]].<ref name="Calhoun2002-104" /> As Durkheim indicated in several essays, it was in Leipzig that he learned to appreciate the value of [[empiricism]] and its language of concrete, complex things, in sharp contrast to the more abstract, clear and simple ideas of the [[Cartesianism|Cartesian method]].<ref>{{harvp|Jones|Spiro|1995|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=vM5MgiPPlgcC&pg=PA148 p. 149]}}</ref> By 1886, as part of his doctoral dissertation, he had completed the draft of his ''The Division of Labour in Society'', and was working towards establishing the new science of sociology.<ref name="Calhoun2002-104" />