AbstractFour related aspects of the Durkheimians' work are explored: (1) their political commitments, especially as these are revealed in their sociological works; (2) their support for the democratic “left establishment” in the Third Republic, particularly for the educational reforms initiated by that group; (3) their academic politics, specifically their struggles with philosophy for control of an intellectual field; and (4) their theories of moral education, especially as those were designed to support the political regime. The four aspects are so closely related that it is hard to understand one of them except in the context of the other th