Durkheim and the unthought: Some dilemmas of modernity

This paper discusses the possibility of examining Durkheimian sociology as an example of what Foucault termed the modem encounter with the "unthought;" an attempt to bring to scientific scrutiny the specific and unacknowledged genesis of certain universal categories of modem life. While Durkheim's approach to this enterprise left him open to charges both of essentialism and of selective forgetting, critical assessments of Durkheim confront similar problems in new ways. It is also suggested that Durkheimian sociology still remains instructive to those who confront issues of knowledge and certainty in a postmodern context.