Compare
Marx and Durkheim in terms of their conceptualization and analysis of ‘society’
and the ‘state’. What are the outstanding similarities and differences?
The study of human systems – of states
and societies – has occupied centrality in most social sciences and humanities.
It is the fundamental purpose of mankind to study why we are here, and how we
manage to do what we do. This purpose has shaped the outlook of knowledge, and
has generated a normative intellect on the aggregate arrangement of humanity. With
changing times, dynamic circumstances accompany; human beings also change and
adapt, but in some ways they fundamentally remain the same. While human beings
experience this condition, they/we also have the capacity to study this
condition, and distinguish different elements on the basis of a given
methodology. Emile Durkheim and Karl Heinrich Marx are two outstanding
individuals who fall in the latter category; using the scientific method to
study the existence, state and function of society, both aimed to outline
critical features of humanity that surpass any spatial or conceptual
limitation. In doing so, Durkheim and Marx were inclined to study the human
condition in terms of their own disciplines; ….
