This article assesses Durkheim's theory of the division of labor in advanced societies relative to Spencer's views on the subject. It seeks to correct a key chapter in the history of sociological thought, for it is in his classic 1893 work that Durkheim is presumed to have routed both Spencer's account of the division of labor and his larger theory of man and society. In fact, Spencer and Durkheim differ very little in their conceptions of the causes of an expanding division of labor (both identify population growth and concentration, and its impact, through heightened competition—group and individual—on specialization of function). They do differ, however, in their treatment of its effects, but Durkheim's explanation is not necessarily—as is commonly assumed in textbook narratives—an improvement of Spencer's. Indeed, many of the questions involved (e.g., whether and to what extent exchange presupposes or creates norms, or divided labor produces cohesion beyond that resulting from mutual need, or the division of labor itself is a moral or economic phenomenon) remain moot. Spencer and Durkheim championed explanations that derived from larger and generally competing perspectives, namely, the moral communalist and the “exchangist” (as Durkheim dubbed his opponent's position). One cannot actually banish the other, for each is a perennially serviceable intellectual outlook.
On the occasion of its recent centennial, we trace the remarkable history of Herbert Spencer's 2,240 page Principles of Sociology, the most inductive, systematic, and comprehensive study of human society ever attempted. Spencer's bold aim was to establish empirically and then to explain (after the manner of the natural sciences) the 'relations of co-existence and sequence' among social phenomena. The database ('mass of evidence') required was so vast that it was published as a separate work, some eight folio volumes called Descriptive Sociology. A major force in the making of both scienti c sociology and anthropology in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Spencer's magnum opus was all but lost to these elds by the early decades of the twentieth century. The present generation, however, is witnessing a growing revival of interest in Spencer's thought. For many, his con dent vision of a natural science of society still oVers the best hope for understanding human societies and how they have come to be as they are.
SiC nanopowder has been formed using an original technological approach based on
grinding of bulk porous SiC nanostructures. The initial porous SiC nanostructures were obtained by
anodization of n+-type 4H-SiC substrate in HF/Ethanol solution under UV illumination. Large
single SiC nanoparticles (~ 30 nm in diameter) constituting the nanopowder have a porous structure
which can be clearly visible. On the other hand, small single SiC nanoparticles (~ 4 nm in diameter)
exhibit a clear crystalline structure. A broad and very intense luminescence band (400 – 900 nm)
provided from the nanopowder corresponds to the radiative processes involving nanoparticle
surface states. A smaller photoluminescence peak centred at 358 nm may correspond to radiative
recombination of the photogenerated excitons confined in the individual and spatially separated 4HSiC
nanoparticles.
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