Although sociology is defined as the science of society, in reality it cannot deal with human groups, which are the immediate concern of its research, without in the end tackling the individual, the ultimate element of which these groups are composed. For society cannot constitute itself unless it penetrates individual consciousnesses and fashions them 'in its image and likeness'; so, without wanting to be over-dogmatic, it can be said with confidence that a number of our mental states, including some of the most essential, have a social origin. Here it is the whole that, to a large extent, constitutes the part; hence it is impossible to try to explain the whole without explaining the part, if only as an after-effect. The product par excellence of collective activity is the set of intellectual and moral goods called civilization; this is why Auguste Comte made sociology the science of civilization. But, in another aspect, it is civilization that has made man into what he is; it is this that distinguishes him from the animal. Man is man only because he is civilized. To look for the causes and conditions on which civilization depends is therefore to look, as well, for the causes and conditions of what, in man, is most specifically human. This is how sociology, while drawing on psychology, which it cannot do without, brings to this, in a just return, a contribution that equals and exceeds in importance the services it receives from it. It is only through historical analysis that it is possible to understand what man is formed of; for it is only in the course of history that he has taken form.

What might Durkheim's writings teach us today about the nature of globalization processes and a globalized world condition? This paper contends that Durkheim has a great deal of relevance for social scientific understandings of contemporary globalization. His distinctive contribution involved understanding the genesis and nature of a world-level moral culture. This vision entailed a significant sociological recasting of Kant's cosmopolitan political philosophy. The paper reconstructs Durkheim's account of world moral culture from writings that stretch throughout his career. For each of the major texts considered, the paper points out some of the important intellectual antecedents that Durkheim may have drawn upon, or which have notable resonances with what he was endeavouring to achieve. The overall argument is that the Durkheimian vision of globalization stands as a major corrective to radical critiques of globalization which reduce it to being a simple product of capitalism and imperialism. The moral dimensions of globalization have to be considered as much as these factors, which the paper takes to be Durkheim's major lesson for globalization studies today.

Among the many theories of socialization, that of Durkheim stands out. While most analyses of socialization are individualistic, that of Durkheim is holistic. This singularity presents a challenge to the modern mind, which is dominated by individualism. Reading Durkheim's analysis of socialization, like the rest of his work, requires the difficult task of overcoming one's natural tendency to do so through an individualistic lens. This paper is an attempt to restore the original holistic meaning of this analysis. It aims to correct some of Durkheim's commentators' re-interpretations of his views and the everyday language that he uses in individualistic terms. Particular attention is given to Durkheim's distinction between authority and power. This distinction has huge implications for Durkheim's interpretation of socialization, which he sees as a process that primarily involves a particular relationship - one that he describes in terms of 'submission' - with the authority of society.

Durkheim’s course of twenty lectures on pragmatism, given at the Sorbonne during the academic year 1913 to 1914, has been regularly reassessed, particularly since an apparently complete English translation (1983). Far from being marginal in Durkheim’s work, as claimed by Steven Lukes (1973), the lectures seem central for understanding Durkheim’s epistemology and methodology. This was initially set out in his two doctoral theses – the main one on the division of labour (1893) – then substantially reworked in later writings, particularly Les Formes élémentaires (1912). Unfortunately, we know the lectures only from a posthumous reconstruction by the faithful Durkheimian and sympathiser with Marxism, the philosopher Armand Cuvillier, who published Pragmatisme et sociologie in 1955, drawing on two anonymous sets of ‘student notes’ that later disappeared. It is thus difficult to know the scope and effect of Cuvillier’s own rewriting of these notes. Moreover, he made his reconstruction forty-two years after the actual presentation by Durkheim at the Sorbonne. The sociological context in France was by this time entirely different. The most prominent sociologists, such as Jean Stoetzel, were outspoken anti-Durkheimians in their demand for an empirical knowledge clearly severed from any philosophical foundation. The Durkheimians who tried to pursue the founder’s endeavour in the interwar period were dead. The very first reviews of Cuvillier’s edition indicate that Durkheimianism seemed to belong to the intellectual past, at least since the death of Marcel Mauss in 1950.

It is quite difficult to diagnose the state of mind that France will be in at the end of the war, and accordingly what, at that time, will be the dominant political movement.