Collective representations, semantic meaning and categorization

Abstract

Abstract From the point of view of philosophy it is the theory of collective representations and the later theory of categorization that seems to be the most important part of Durkheim’s oeuvre. The theory of collective representation has played a significant role in the debates on the theory of sciences in the last decades of XIXth. century on the one hand, and has influenced the contemporary pragmatic philosophy on the other. The article presents first Durkheim’s theoretical struggle with the predominant neokantian tendency, then, in the second step, aims to analyze and to evaluate Durkheim’s conception on categorization partly in his famous essay on categorization written with Mauss, partly in his late works. Keywords: category, collective representation, meaning, institution