The literature of the field makes sometimes mention of opinions according to which so-cial representations are identical with collective representations, both concepts sharing the task of offering to individuals a coherent and functional vision upon the surrounding world. Starting from this idea, it quite natural to analyze whether social representations and social representation are indeed interchangeable, conveying one and the same psy-cho-sociological phenomenon, one and the same modality of interpreting reality or one and the same vision upon the manner in which people select their values, beliefs and style of life, in accordance with the surrounding world. A careful examination of the concept of collective representation, put forth by É. Durk-heim, and also of the concept of social representation of S. Moscovici, evidences that their analysis requires different approaches. The concept elaborated by S. Moscovici and also the eariler one, proposed by É. Durkheim, do not provide equivalent ideatic construc-tions. If, in one of the situations, involved is a sociology of knowledge, which, “being deeply rooted in the theories of Newton and in the philosophical ideas of Kantian origin”, considers science and religion the main sources capable of offering to people “more and more ade-quate approximations of reality”, in the other case stress is laid on a most rigurous psy-cho-sociological approach which, reducing considerably the importance of the already accumulated knowledge on “the world outside us” and questioning the truthfulness of the images with “a continuous and level-headed existential aspect”, interprets the evolution of things through the angle of discontinuity, imbalance and relativity.