Durkheim's Suicide is a foundational text for the discipline of sociology, and, over a hundred years later, it remains influential in the study of suicide. Durkheim's study demonstrates that what is thought to be a highly individual act is actually socially patterned and has social, not only psychological, causes. Durkheim's study uses the logic of multivariate statistical analysis, which is now widely used in the discipline of sociology. Durkheim considered factors including country, marital status, religion, and education level to explain variations in suicide rates. Durkheim found that Protestants, who tended to be more highly educated, had a higher rate of suicide than Catholics, who tended to have lower levels of education. Jewish people fell outside of this pattern; highly educated, they had a very low rate of suicide. Durkheim explained that the education of Protestants led them to individual consciousness whereas the education of Jewish people meant to make them more integrated into their religious community. Durkheim arrives at a typology of suicide ranging between high and low regulation and high and low integration: egoistic, altruistic, anomic, and fatalistic suicide.

Reading assignment:
Durkheim, Suicide, pp. 41-53, 145-276

1. Introduction
2. Hobbes: Authority, Human Rights and Social Order
3. Locke: Equality, Freedom, Property and the Right to Dissent
4. Montesquieu: The Division of Powers
5. Rousseau: Popular Sovereignty and General Will
6. Rousseau on State of Nature and Education
7. Mill: Utilitarianism and Liberty
8. Smith: The Invisible Hand
9. Marx's Theory of Alienation
10. Marx's Theory of Historical Materialism
11. Marx's Theory of Historical Materialism (cont.)
12. Marx's Theory of History
13. Marx's Theory of Class and Exploitation
14. Nietzsche on Power, Knowledge and Morality
15. Freud on Sexuality and Civilization
16. Weber on Protestantism and Capitalism
17. Conceptual Foundations of Weber's Theory of Domination
18. Weber on Traditional Authority
19. Weber on Charismatic Authority
20. Weber on Legal-Rational Authority
21. Weber's Theory of Class
22. Durkheim and Types of Social Solidarity
23. Durkheim's Theory of Anomie
24. Durkheim on Suicide
25. Durkheim and Social Facts

This course provides an overview of major works of social thought from the beginning of the modern era through the 1920s. Attention is paid to social and intellectual contexts, conceptual frameworks and methods, and contributions to contemporary social analysis. Writers include Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Adam Smith, Marx, Weber, and Durkheim.

Course Structure:
This Yale College course, taught on campus twice per week for 50 minutes, was recorded for Open Yale Courses in Fall 2009.