Classification as Collective Representation: A Conceptual Review of Durkheim and Mauss's Primitive Classification

This article examines Émile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss's Primitive Classification as a foundational text in the sociology of knowledge that argues classificatory thinking is not merely an individual cognitive given, but a socially formed institution. Using library research and critical-conceptual analysis, the paper reconstructs the book's central thesis that social divisions (moieties, clans, and totemic groupings) provide the prototype and scheme by which natural phenomena are organized into hierarchical systems of categories. The analysis highlights their comparative cases, including Australian totemic systems, Zuñi and Sioux classifications, and Chinese correlative cosmology, to show how cosmological order and social order are made mutually intelligible through classificatory logics. The article then discusses Rodney Needham's editorial introduction, which questions the explanatory "resort to sentiment" and the conflation of collective representations with universal cognitive faculties. The study concludes that the enduring value of Primitive Classification lies in its programmatic claim: sociological analysis can illuminate the genesis and functioning of logical operations, while later critique urges caution against overstating causal claims and psychological reduction.

1. Alexander, J. C. (1982). Theoretical logic in sociology: Volume 2, The antinomies of classical thought: Marx and Durkheim. University of California Press.
2. Allen, S. (2025). General Social Theory or Resistant Knowledge Project?: The Public Life of Social Constructionism and Its Implications for Liberation Sociology. Sociological Forum. https://doi.org/10.1111/socf.70015
3. Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. Anchor Books.
4. Durkheim, E. (1982). The rules of sociological method (S. Lukes, Ed.; WD Halls, Trans.).
5. Free Press. (Original work published 1895).
6. Durkheim, E. (1984). The division of labor in society (WD Halls, Trans.). Free Press. (Original work published 1893).
7. Durkheim, E. (1995). The elementary forms of religious life (KE Fields, Trans.). Free Press. (Original work published 1912).
8. Durkheim, É., & Mauss, M. (1963). Primitive classification (R. Needham, Trans. & Ed.).
9. Cohen & West. (Original work published 1903).
10. Frazer, J. G. (1910). Totemism and exogamy: A treatise on certain early forms of superstition and society (Vol. 1-4). Macmillan.
11. Gadamer, H.-G. (1989). Truth and method (2nd rev. ed.; J. Weinsheimer & D.G. Marshall, Trans.). Continuum. (Original work published 1960).
12. Koretskaya, M. (2025). The development of nosological classifications in the context of the social construction of scientific facts problem. Философская мысль. https://doi.org/10.25136/2409-8728.2025.11.76568
13. Lukes, S. (1972). Émile Durkheim: His life and work, a historical and critical study. Allen Lane.
14. Mannheim, K. (1936). Ideology and utopia: An introduction to the sociology of knowledge (L. Wirth & E. Shils, Trans.). Harcourt, Brace & World. (Original work published 1929).
15. Marchelia, K. (2025). Epistemologi Ilmu Dalam Perspektif Filsafat Kontemporer: Sebuah Tinjauan Sistematis. Journal of Innovation in Teaching and Instructional Media. https://doi.org/10.52690/jitim.v5i3.1050
16. Needham, R. (1963). Introduction. In É. Durkheim & M. Mauss, Primitive classification (R. Needham, Trans. & Ed., pp. vii-xlviii). Cohen & West.
17. Neuberger, C., Bartsch, A., Fröhlich, R., Hanitzsch, T., Reinemann, C., & Schindler, J. (2023). The digital transformation of knowledge order: a model for the analysis of the epistemic crisis. Annals of the International Communication Association, 47, 180 - 201. https://doi.org/10.1080/23808985.2023.2169950
18. Rawls, A. W. (2004). Epistemology and practice: Durkheim's The elementary forms of religious life. Cambridge University Press.
19. Ricoeur, P. (1981). Hermeneutics and the human sciences: Essays on language, action and interpretation (JB Thompson, Ed. & Trans.). Cambridge University Press.
20. Rughiniș, C., & Flaherty, M. (2022). The Social Bifurcation of Reality: Symmetrical Construction of Knowledge in Science-Trusting and Science-Distrusting Discourses. Frontiers in Sociology, 7. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2022.782851
21. Sartori, G. (1970). Concept misformation in comparative politics. American Political Science Review, 64(4), 1033-1053. https://doi.org/10.2307/1958356
22. Shaffer, J. (2021). Knowledge, boundaries, and bodies: Social construction between medical sociology and science and technology studies. Sociology Compass. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12924
23. Thellefsen, M. (2025). The elusive essence: A philosophical interrogation of phenomenon‐based knowledge organization. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 76, 1743 - 1753. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.70031
24. Zandonade, T., Martínez-Ávila, D., & Satija, M. (2025). Bibliographic Organization and the Origins of Social Epistemology at the Graduate Library School of the University of Chicago. Communication, technologies et développement. https://doi.org/10.4000/14141