Морис Альбвакс: Коллективная память и социология знания

French sociologist

Maurice Halbwachs (mɔˈʁis ˈalbvaks; 11 March 1877 – 16 March 1945) was a French philosopher and sociologist known for developing the concept of collective memory. Halbwachs also contributed to the sociology of knowledge with his La Topographie Legendaire des Évangiles en Terre Sainte; study of the spatial infrastructure of the New Testament. (1951)

Born in Reims, France, Halbwachs attended the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. There he studied philosophy with Henri Bergson, who had a major influence on his thinking. Halbwachs' early work on memory was in some measure pursued to coincide with Bergson's view on the subject of memory being a particularly personal and subjective experience. He then aggregated in Philosophy in 1901. He taught at various lycées before traveling to Germany in 1904, where he studied at the University of Göttingen and worked on cataloging Leibniz's papers until 1907. He was nominated to co edit an edition of Leibniz's work which never came to fruition. He returned to France in 1905 and met Émile Durkheim, who sparked his interest in sociology. Initially, when meeting Durkheim, Halbwachs was looking for advice on how to move from his previous focus on Philosophy to Sociology. Halbwachs also began to focus on scientific objectivism rather than his Bergsonian Individualism.

Halbwachs' most important contribution to the field of sociology came in his book La Mémoire collective, 1950 ("The Collective Memory"), in which he advanced the thesis that a society can have a collective memory and that this memory is dependent upon the "cadre" or framework within which a group is situated in society. Thus, there is not only an individual memory but also a group memory that exists outside of and lives beyond the individual. An individual's understanding of the past is strongly linked to this group consciousness because every person can contribute a different memory or perspective to the collective group memory. Group memory is also different for every group that experiences a certain event, therefore "every group has its own collective memory and that collective memory differs from the collective memory of other groups. This idea of memory being pursued proves people's expression of commemoration in our culture. Commemoration offers collective memory ties to society and its conceptions where physical monuments and rituals fix and affirm collectivity. Halbwachs also wrote an important book on suicide, Les Causes du suicide, 1930 ("The Causes of Suicide"). In this book he followed the footsteps of his mentor Émile Durkheim (who was also a French Sociologist) expanding and elaborating upon the former's theories on suicide. Specifically, he focused on ideas such as, the ways in which rural and urban styles of life explain variations in suicide rates. Halbwachs also continued to further Durkheim's conceptualization of how specific family styles and religious backgrounds alter rates of suicide.

Halbwachs was influenced by ideas of Emile Durkheim, such as collective consciousness, with adding more to this term by individual and collective memory. Halbwachs was also influenced by Henri Bergson's stance on subjectivity, which creates states how this impacts our consciousness and intuition.