“Suicide as a ‘social fact’ is an illustration of Emile Durkheim s views on ‘society ‘and  methodology”. Discuss.

Relevance: Sociology: paper I: Thinkers:

 Model Answer:

Emile Durkheim’s Study of Suicide is an illustration of his views on ‘society ‘ and ‘methodology’. According to him , the impact of social structures or society on individual s  thoughts and actions , can best be established through a ‘sociological analysis’ of suicide , which is otherwise an ‘individualistic phenomena’. According to Durkheim .’Unobservable forces ‘ shaped human behaviour. The total number of suicides were also determined by ‘unobservable collective tendencies ‘, having an existence of their own,

 Emile Durkheim, used ‘quantitative ‘ scientific’ methods, employing the ‘comparative method ‘ in a highly systematic manner to According to him , suicide cannot simply be explained by’  individual psychological problems ,’as there was very little relationship between the ‘ incidence  of sanity’ and ‘suicide rate.’

Durkheim studied suicide because of availability of ‘suicide statistics’ from a number of European countries. He regarded these statistics as ‘social facts and believed that they could be used to find ‘sociological causes’ of suicide rates. He would try to establish ‘co relations’, and using the ‘comparative method’, could uncover the patterns of ‘causal relationships ‘ at work in the production of ‘ suicide rates . Through , such an analysis of suicide , he tried to  demonstrate that sociology was as ‘rigorous a discipline’ as the ‘natural sciences’ ..

Durkheim, argued that the ‘suicide rate’ is a ‘factual order’ , ‘unified’ and ‘definite’ ,as is seen  in it s ‘permanence’ and ‘variability. He discovered ‘consistent variations’ in the suicide rates ,  between ‘different groups’ , within the same society . According to him, it was impossible to explain these patterns if suicide was a ‘personal’ and ‘ individual act.’

Durkheim established ‘co rrelations’ between suicides and other set of ‘social facts.’ He found that ‘suicide rates ‘ were .higher in predominantly Protestant countries than in Catholics.  “Married people are less prone to suicide than those who were single. However, married women who remained child less, for a number of years, had a high suicide rate,. A low suicide rate was associated with political upheaval. After , establishing these correlations , he used  ‘multivariate analysis’ to isolate the most important variables , and to determine, whether there  was a genuine ‘causal relationship’ between these social factors and suicide . Ex. ‘national culture’ rather than the ‘main religion’ of particular countries could account for the suicide rate .

Therefore, based on statistical analysis o1f ‘suicide rates’ across different European countries, Durkheim concluded that suicide, had less to do with ‘individual motives,’ and more to do with certain ‘social currents’ lying outside the individual. Depending on the relationship between , individual and society, he classified ‘four types of suicide ‘, determined by the ‘ degree  of ‘integration’ with society or ‘degree of regulation’ by society’. This classification further helps in establishing ‘suicide as a social fact’ i) Altruistic suicide Fatalistic suicide iii)Anomic suicide  iii) Egoistic suicide .

Insufficient regulation  Critiques, have however, challenged Durkheim’s study of suicide, by questioning the ‘validity’ of  the ‘official statistics’ used by him .Gibbs and Martin, criticized, Durkheim for being insufficiently  ‘positivist “,as in some instances , he made use of concepts , which could not be ‘directly observed  or measured’, ex anomie. According to Douglas, in the classification of suicide , Durkheim has  neglected the ‘social meanings , behind an individual act, which could vary in different societies  and contexts .

However , Emile Durkheim s study of ‘suicide’ as a ‘social fact ‘, through analysis of another  social fact , ‘statistics ‘, hugely contributed in establishing Sociology , firmly as an ‘academic  discipline ‘ , which was distinct from other disciplines, by using the ‘positivist methodology ‘. According to Halbwachs, Durkheim has been able to provide a ‘fully comprehensive treatment of suicide’, which could be modified and added to , but the principles seemed impregnable.