Abstract

This chapter examines the philosophical underpinnings of Durkheim’s account of anomie as social pathology. It examines and evaluates Durkheim’s conception of social pathology and his claim that social problems must be understood as analogous to illnesses. Further, it explores the vision of social ontology—of the kind of being that human societies have—underlying Durkheim’s position, which involves articulating the ways in which human societies are both different from and similar to biological organisms. Because Durkheim conceives of the task of social theory as similar to that of medicine, his account of anomie can be regarded as compatible in important ways with the tradition of Frankfurt-style critical theory. Both approaches to social reality attribute to social theory three inter-related tasks: theoretical understanding, normative evaluation, and guidance for practical action directed at changing the pathologies it diagnoses.