Relevance: Sociology paper I

SOCIOLOGY AS A STUDY OF ‘SOCIAL FACTS

In defining the subject matter of Sociology two tasks are involved:

• Defining the total field of study and (b) defining the sort of ‘thing’ which will be found in this field. In his book, The Rules of Sociological Method, published in 1895, Durkheim (1950: 3) is concerned with the second task and calls social facts the subject matter of

Durkheim, defines social facts as “ways of acting, thinking and feeling, external to the individual, and endowed with a power of coercion by reason of which they control him”.

To Durkheim society is a reality suigeneris. Society comes into being by the association of individuals. Hence society represents a specific reality which has its own characteristics. This unique reality of society is separate from other realities studied by physical or biological sciences.

Further, societal reality is apart from individuals and is over and above them. Thus, the reality of society must be the subject matter of sociology. A scientific understanding of any social phenomenon must emerge from the ‘collective’ or associational characteristics manifest in the social structure of a society. While working towards this end, Durkheim developed and made use of a variety of sociological concepts. Collective representations is one of the leading concepts to be found in the social thought of Durkheim. Before learning about ‘collective representations’ it is necessary that you understand what Durkheim meant by ‘social facts’

Social Facts

Durkheim based his scientific vision of sociology on the fundamental principle, i.e., the objective reality of social facts. Social fact is that way of acting, thinking or feeling etc., which is more or less general in a given society. Durkheim treated social facts as things. They are real and exist independent of the individual’s will or desire. They are external to individuals and are capable of exerting constraint upon them. In other words they are coercive in nature. Further social facts exist in their own right. They are independent of individual manifestations. The true nature of social facts lies in the collective or associational characteristics inherent in society. Legal codes and customs, moral rules, religious beliefs and practices, language etc. are all social facts.

 Types of Social Facts

Durkheim saw social facts as lying along a continuum.

First, on one extreme are structural or morphological social phenomena. They make up the substratum of collective life. By this he meant the number and nature of elementary parts of which society is composed, the way in which the morphological constituents are arranged and the degree to which they are fused together. In this category of social facts are included the distribution of population over the surface of the territory, the forms of dwellings, nature of communication system etc.

Secondly, there are institutionalized forms of social facts. They are more or less general and widely spread in society. They represent the collective nature of the society as a whole. Under this category fall legal and moral rules, religious dogma and established beliefs and practices prevalent in a society.

Thirdly, there are social facts, which are not institutionalized. Such social facts have not yet acquired crystallized forms. They lie beyond the institutionalized norms of society. Also this category of social facts have not attained a total objective and independent existence comparable to the institutionalized ones.

Further Durkheim made an important distinction in terms of normal and pathological social facts. A social fact is normal when it is generally encountered in a society of a certain type at a certain phase in its evolution. Every deviation from this standard is a pathological fact. For example, some degree of crime is inevitable in any society. Hence according to Durkheim crime to that extent is a normal fact. However, an extraordinary increase in the rate of crime is pathological. A general weakening in the moral condemnation of crime and certain type of economic crisis leading to anarchy in society are other examples of pathological facts.

Main Characteristics of Social Facts

In Durkheim’s view sociology as an objective science must conform to the model of the other sciences. It posed two requirements: first the ‘subject’ of sociology must be specific. And it must be distinguished from the ‘subjects’ of all other sciences. Secondly the ‘subject’ of sociology must be such as to be observed and explained. Similar to the way in which facts are observed and explained in other sciences. For Durkheim this ‘subject’ of sociology is the social fact, and that social facts must be regarded as ‘things’.

The main characteristics of social facts are

• externality,
• constraint,
• independence, and
• generality

Social facts, according to Durkheim, exist outside individual consciences. Their existence is external to the individuals. For example, domestic or civic or contractual obligations are defined externally to the individual in laws and customs. Religious beliefs and practices exist outside and prior to the individual. An individual takes birth in a society and leaves it after birth death, however social facts are already given in society and remain in existence irrespective of birth or death of an individual. For example language continues to function independently of any single individual.

The other characteristic of social fact is that it exercises a constraint on individuals. Social fact is recognized because it forces itself on the individual. For example, the institutions of law, education, beliefs etc. are already given to everyone from without. They are commanding and obligatory for all. There is constraint, when in a crowd, a feeling or thinking imposes itself on everyone. Such a phenomenon is typically social because its basis, its subject is the group as a whole and not one individual in particular.

A social fact is that which has more or less a general occurrence in a society. Also it is independent of the personal features of individuals or universal attributes of human nature. Examples are the beliefs, feelings and practices of the group taken collectively.

In sum, the social fact is specific. It is born of the association of individuals. It represents a collective content of social group or society. It differs in kind from what occurs in individual consciousness. Social facts can be subjected to categorisation and classification. Above all social facts form the subject matter of the science of sociology.