Download or read book Durkheim, Bernard and Epistemology written by Paul Q. Hirst and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title, first published in 1975, contains two complimentary studies by Paul Q. Hirst: the first based on Claude Bernard’s theory of scientific knowledge, and the second concerning Emile Durkheim’s attempt to provide a philosophical foundation for a scientific sociology in The Rules of Sociological Method. The author’s primary concern is to answer the question: is Durkheim’s theory of knowledge logically consistent and philosophically viable? His principal conclusion is that the epistemology developed in the Rules is an impossible one and that its inherent contradictions are proof that sociology as it is commonly understood can never be a scientific discipline.