...definition would risk serious misunderstanding," he warned at the opening of his first empirical monograph. "If we follow common use, we risk distinguishing what...things, and accordingly misapprehending their nature" ([1897] 1951, 41). However impatient Durkheim was with the unwholesome effects of ' 'Cartesian thinking"...

...express, are always susceptible to more than one meaning, and the scholar employing them . . . risk[s] distinguishing what should be combined, or combining...things, and accordingly misapprehending their nature." By contrast, science uses univocal language; it therefore "is the highest grade of knowledge and there...

...says, 'merely express the confused impression of the mob'; 'if we follow common use,' he continues, 'we risk distinguishing what should be combined, or...things, and accordingly misapprehending their nature'. The investigations which the social scientist makes have to deal with 'comparable facts', whose 'natural...

...conversation, it might be thought that its sense is universally known and that definition is superfluous ... if we follow common use, we risk distinguishing what...what should be distinguished, thus mistaking the real affinity of things. Purkheim 1963:41) In 1 992 accidents accounted for more than twice as many fatalities...