SuicideA classic book about the phenomenon of suicide and its social causes written by one of the world’s most influential sociologists. Emile Durkheim’s Suicide addresses the phenomenon of suicide and its social causes. Written by one of the world’s most influential sociologists, this classic argues that suicide primarily results from a lack of integration of the individual into society. Suicide provides readers with an understanding of the impetus for suicide and its psychological impact on the victim, family, and society. |
Contents
| 13 | |
| 32 | |
| 41 | |
| 47 | |
How to Determine Social Causes and Social Types | 145 |
Egoistic Suicide | 152 |
Egoistic Suicide continued | 171 |
Altruistic Suicide | 217 |
Anomic Suicide | 241 |
Individual Forms of the Different Types of Suicide | 277 |
The Social Element of Suicide | 297 |
Detailed Table of Contents | 399 |
361 | 405 |
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Common terms and phrases
according altruistic suicide anomy appears Austria average become Catholic Celts cent characteristics cide coefficient of aggravation coefficient of preservation collective commit suicide common conscience considered constitution contrary countries crimes definite Denmark depend divorce Durkheim effect egoistic suicide environment existence explain fact feel figures France greater heredity homicide husbands hypothesis ideas imitation immunity increase individual influence insanity intensity inversely Italy kill latter less marriage married persons mental merely million inhabitants monomania moral moral constitution Morselli murders nature neurasthenia non-commissioned officers number of suicides observed occur Oettingen organic Paris period phenomenon population proportion Protestant Protestantism provinces Prussia race reason relation religion religious result Saxony Seine-et-Marne sentiments social causes social environment social suicide-rate society sort statistics suicidal tendency suicides per million Table tendency to suicide tion types of suicide unmarried Upper Palatinate varies vidual voluntary deaths wholly widowed widowhood wives women
Popular passages
Page 247 - No living being can be happy or even exist unless his needs are sufficiently proportioned to his means. In other words, if his needs require more than can be granted, or even merely something of a different sort, they will be under continual friction and can only function painfully.
Page 254 - The scale is upset; but a new scale cannot be immediately improvised. Time is required for the public conscience to reclassify men and things. So long as the social forces thus freed have not regained equilibrium, their respective values are unknown and so all regulation is lacking for a time. The limits are unknown between the possible and the impossible, what is just and what is unjust, legitimate claims and hopes and those which are immoderate.
Page 45 - We may then say conclusively: the term suicide is applied to all cases of death resulting directly or indirectly from a positive or negative act of the victim himself, which he knows will produce this result.
Page 167 - Fundamentally traditionalist by nature, they govern their conduct by fixed beliefs and have no great intellectual needs. In Italy, between 1878-79, there were 4,808 married men out of 10,000 who could not sign their marriage contract; of 10,000 married women, 7,029 could not.17 In France, the proportion in 1879 was 199 husbands and 310 wives per 1,000 couples.
Page 42 - So, if we follow common use, we risk distinguishing what should be combined, or combining what should be distinguished, thus mistaking the real affinities of things, and accordingly misapprehending their nature. Only comparison affords explanation. A scientific investigation can thus be achieved only if it deals with comparable facts, and it is the more likely to succeed the more certainly it has combined all those that can be usefully compared.
Page 38 - I ties external to the individual. There is no principle for which we have received more criticism; but none is more fundamental. Indubitably for sociology to be possible, it must above all have an object all its own. It must take cognizance of a reality which is not in the domain of other sciences.
Page 248 - In no society are they equally satisfied in the different stages of the social hierarchy. Yet human nature is substantially the same among all men, in its essential qualities. It is not human nature which can assign the variable limits necessary to our needs. They are thus unlimited so far as they depend on the individual alone.