The sociology of Emile Durkheim in relation to the history of ideas on freedom and constraint

This thesis describes the history of a particular idea-complex, its origins and subsequent development in relation to the question of freedom and constraint and to the sociology of Emile Durkheim. The changes in this pattern of ideas are traced through to Rousseau and through its totalitarian democratic and romantic phases. The sociology of Emile Durkheim is seen to be a response to the problems of his age, in terms of this earlier tradition, but reformulated in a positive scientific manner. Consequently the aim of the thesis is to redirect attention to the parallels with such a tradition in Durkheim's thought that hitherto have been neglected.