Durkheim’s classifications tradition was overshadowed by Parsons’ positivism

Evidence

Until that time, the legacy of Durkheim’s work that had come to dominate sociology—especially in its baleful structural-functionalist mode, as developed by Talcott Parsons in the United States—had been a thoroughly positivist one, concerned simply with the collection of objective social data. The alternative strand of Durkheim’s work that Stuart was concerned to rescue was that in the neo-Kantian tradition, where in his work with Marcel Mauss he had come to study not simply “social facts” but rather the significance of the cognitive categories and mental classifications—the collective representations—through which members of a society perceive their world and, indeed, construct these facts. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 288

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces ‘collective representations’ as a key concept distinguishing the two Durkheim strands.
• XREF: Connects to the sociology of knowledge tradition and to Berger and Luckmann’s social constructionism built on Schutz and Durkheim. — connects to: Durkheim’s American reception distorted his focus on ideas into positivism — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 352; Durkheim’s positivism studied codified norms rather than individual intentions. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 353; Durkheim’s misunderstood because American empiricism selectively expropriated his work
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Durkheim’s American reception distorted his focus on ideas into positivism — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 352; Durkheim’s positivism studied codified norms rather than individual intentions. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 353; Durkheim’s misunderstood because American empiricism selectively expropriated his work