This article deals with Emile Durkheim and his sociological school. It shows that one of the goals of this school was – in connection with philosophical forerunners such as Aristotle and Kant – to develop a sociological analysis of the basic categories of the human mind. Special attention is devoted to the category of time, which was interpreted by Durkheim as a reflection of the rhythms of collective life. The second part of the article deals with a critical discussion of this conception, which later led to the formulation of ideas about specific social time. What can be criticised in Durkheim is primarily his inadequate consideration of problems nowadays associated with the term “arrow of time”.