Durkheim and Sociology I: Social Facts

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Durkheim and Sociology ISocial Facts
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Main points

• 1. Durkheim wants to set up sociology as a
  properly scientific discipline
• 2. He models it on the hard natural sciences
• 3. He tries to prove society really exists
• Its not just a collection of individuals
• 4. Main thing to examine social facts
• These strongly constrain and shape individuals
  thoughts and actions

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OUTLINE

• Durkheims life
• Durkheims aims
• The new science of sociology
• Social facts
• Scientific method positivism
• The suicide study
• Some problems
• Assessment

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Durkheims Life

• Born in 1858 dies 1916
• Assimilated Jewish family
• Committed to French Republican ideals liberty,
  equality fraternity
• Middle-of-the-road politics reformist socialism

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Main books

• The Division of Labour in Society (1893)
• The Rules of Sociological Method (1895)
• Suicide (1897)
• The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912)

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Durkheims Aims

• To help reconstruct French society
• War with Germany, 1870
• Anti-Semitism
• Industrial unrest
• 2) To set up sociology as a proper science
• Scientifically rigorous
• Objective knowledge
• 3) To set up sociology as a distinct discipline
• Different from psychology

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Durkheims Aims

• 4) Go beyond his predecessors
• Sociology already coined by
• Auguste Comte (1798-1857)
• Durkheim influenced by Comte
• Sociology is a science
• Can be used to solve social problems
• Durkheim wants to go beyond Comte
• Comtes ideas too simplistic
• His version of sociology not scientific enough

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The New Science of Sociology

• Sociologys subject matter Society
• Against utilitarianism
• Only individuals
• Self-interested and calculating
• Society really exists it has an existence of
  its own
• Society is more than the sum of its parts
• i.e. society is more than just a collection of
  individuals

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SOCIAL FACTS

• Society is a set of social facts
• Social facts have two key features
• 1) Social facts are external to the individual
• 2) Social facts are constraining of the
  individuals thoughts and actions

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• Social facts are mental in nature
• a) They are shared thoughts and feelings
• b) They are expressed in
• language and symbols
• c) They are shared they have an
• existence beyond each individuals mind
• d) Socialisation education
• shared thoughts and feelings inculcated into the
  individual child
• e) Naturalisation taking as natural what
  has been socialised into you

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• Each individual has 2 sides
• Purely personal side
• wholly individual character and
• personality
• 2) Social side
• - ways of thinking and feeling socialised into
  individual by social forces
• - constantly reinforced by social facts
• Pre-modern society high level of 2)
• Modern society higher levels of 1).

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• Social facts are moral in nature
• a) They divide the world up into good and
  bad, moral and immoral, sacred and
  wicked
• b) They encourage an individual to act in ways
  that society defines as appropriate behaviour
• c) They encourage an individual not to act in
  ways that society defines as inappropriate
  behaviour

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• Appropriate (socially sanctioned) behaviour is
  rewarded
• Inappropriate (socially condemned) behaviour is
  punished
• Breaking of everyday social norms
• low-level punishments

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• If I do not submit to the conventions of
  society, if in my dress I do not conform to the
  customs observed in my country and in my class,
  the ridicule I provoke, the social isolation in
  which I am kept, produce . punishments ...
• I am not obliged to speak French with my
  fellow-countrymen nor to use the legal currency,
  but I cannot possibly do otherwise ...

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• Religion a very important social fact
• - divides the world up into sacred and
  not-sacred (profane) things
• individuals thinking actions strongly guided
  by ideas of what is sacred
• anyone disrespecting sacred things severely
  punished
• Applies particularly in pre-modern societies but
  also still applies in modernity

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SOCIOLOGY AS A SCIENCE

• Sociology to be independent of other disciplines
• Especially psychology
• Psychologys domain individual brains and minds
• Sociologys domain Society - the realm of
  social facts

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SCIENTIFIC METHOD POSITIVISM

• Positivism
• A doctrine developed in the later 18th century
  the Enlightenment
• b) Applied to chemistry, physics, biology
• c) Science can produce thoroughly objective
  (positive) knowledge

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• d) Real truth beyond mere opinions
• Scientists are dispassionate and objective
• They dont impose their views on the data
• e) Science can be completely rigorous uses
  reliable methods (experiments)
• f) Science discovers scientific laws that apply
  in all circumstances
• e.g. putting together nitro and glycerine
• e.g. the boiling point of water is ALWAYS 100 C

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Durkheims Positivism

• Applies positivism to sociology
• Sociology can be a real science
• if it is positivist
• i.e, if it is modelled on the lines of the
  natural sciences
• Sociology the natural science of society

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• a) Sociology searches for objective knowledge
  about how society really works
• b) It uses rigorous scientific methods
• c) The sociologist puts her own personal biases
  aside
• - lets the facts speak for themselves
• this is possible as social facts really exist
• there can be true and false viewpoints on them

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• Sociology produces objective knowledge that is
  beyond mere opinions about society
• Sociologist is a scientist who knows more about
  society than ordinary members of it

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• d) Sociology finds the objective laws of social
  life
• e.g. high suicide rates caused by lack of social
  integration
• (At the least sociology can spot really
  occurring social patterns and trends)
• e) Sociology uses produces reliable statistics
  these indicate social patterns social laws

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• f) The practical point of sociology
• - produce objective knowledge that can be used to
  help improve social conditions
• - sociologys findings inform government
  policy-making
• ? Sociology can research social problems find
  their real causes suggest how to solve them

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THE SUICIDE STUDY
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THE SUICIDE STUDY

• Aims
• To show sociology could produce objective data
• To show sociology had as rigorous methods as the
  natural sciences
• To show that human behaviour was as much socially
  shaped as it was driven by the individuals
  personal motivations
• To show that psychology on its own could not
  explain suicide
• To provide information about social causes of
  suicide, for government to try to reduce suicide
  levels

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• Methods
• Examine suicide rates in a number of different
  countries these vary
• Rates accessed through government statistics
• Explain varying suicide rates with reference to
  the key social facts that exist in each country

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Findings 4 types of suicide
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4 types of suicide - causes

• Two key social facts
• Level of Social regulation
• Degree to which individuals thoughts and actions
  are regulated by society (social facts)
• There has to be enough regulation / too much
• 2) Level of Social integration
• Degree to which individuals are integrated into
  society and social groups (e.g. family, local
  community, religious group, etc.)
• There has to be enough integration / too much

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• Different countries have different levels of
  suicide
• - Suicide rates in each country are socially
  shaped
• - Different countries have different levels of
  social regulation and social integration
• Within a country some social groups more likely
  to commit suicide than others
• - Different social groups are subject to
  different levels of social regulation and
  integration

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SOME PROBLEMS

• 1) Assumes official statistics are true and
  accurate representations of reality
• Statistics are social constructions
• Who gets counted as a suicide?
• Depends on the judgements of police and coroners
• Sometimes actual suicides are not recorded as
  such e.g. Catholics

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• 2) (Weber) Ignores the motivations of people
  committing suicide
• treats individuals as
• passive puppets of broader social forces
• what about individuals capacities to think and
  choose?
• overemphasises SOCIAL STRUCTURE over INDIVIDUALS
  AGENCY

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ASSESSMENT

• 1) Durkheims view of social facts still very
  influential today generally
• 2) Durkheims positivism still (largely) accepted
  by sociologists working with statistics, surveys
  and large sets of data
• 3) Durkheims critics say he is naïve and
  simplistic too much faith in positivism.
• Is he outdated or not?