The paper deals with the relationship between Emile Durkheim´s sociology and the contractualist tradition of political philosophy, represented here pricipally by Thomas Hobbles. Its aim is to show that Giddens´s strict rejection of Parsons´s claim according to which Durkheim has reopened in his work the "Hobbes´s problem of order", should not be accepted as such, because it´s radicality hides that what is the value in Parsons´s thesis. As we argue, Parsons has the merit of noticing that Hobbes and Spencer, who - in respect of their social philosophies - are usually seen as opposed, appear to be close to each other when they are considered by Durkheim as to the conception of the society their philosophies yield. Yet Durkheim´s sociology is an endeavour to conceive the society independently of the state, and thus, inversely, to emancipate the state from the society, so that it can be entrusted with a different function other than the guarantor of the social order. and Jan Maršálek.