Relational Durkheim: Homo Duplex as the Foundation of a Formalist Cultural Sociology

Abstract

I propose that the sociology of Émile Durkheim can serve as a useful foundation for a formalist cultural sociology. Durkheim’s homo duplex model of human cognition directs analytic attention to the relative balance of opportunities that the moral integration of society as a system of representations affords for establishing moral unity with others, on one hand, and realizing personal autonomy, on the other. This apriority, like Simmel’s forms, operates independently of any specific representational contents to produce outcomes related to solidarity, well-being, affect, and existential security. Accordingly, Durkheim provides conceptual resources for a hypothetico-deductive research program that promotes the development of testable hypotheses grounded in intuitions about how individuals phenomenologically experience formal properties of belief networks or other systems of social ideation.