Social facts Durkheim

In his book, The Rules of Sociological Method (written in the year

1895), Emile Durkheim explained Social Facts. Social facts is a
category of facts which presents very special characteristics: they
consist of manners of acting, thinking and feeling external to the
individual, which are invested with a coercive power by the virtue of
which they exercise control over him. Since they consist of
representations and actions, they cannot be confused with organic
phenomena. Thus they constitute a new species and to them must
be exclusively assigned the term social.
Social facts could be divided into 2 categories. They are as follows:-
1) Material social facts are features of society such as social
structures and institutions. These could be the system of law,
the economy, church and many aspects of religion, the state,
and educational institutions and structures. They could also
include features such as channels of communication, urban
structures, and population distribution. The example under
material social facts is Durkheims study the Division of Labour
in Society where all his facts are observable. The division of
labour gets affected due to the social institutions and
structures of the simple and complex societies.
2) Non-Material social facts are social facts which do not have a
material reality. They consist of features such as norms, values,
and systems of morality. Some contemporary examples are the
norm of the one to three child families, the positive values
associated with family structures, and the negative associations
connected to aggression and anger. In Durkheim's terminology,
some of these nonmaterial social facts are morality, collective
consciousness, and social currents. Example for this kind of
social fact would be his study on the differing rates of suicide
where he tries to explain that it is not because of psychological
or geographical reasons due to which suicide rates differ,
rather it is the social reasons and pressures of norms and
values of the society that affect the rate of suicide.
Social facts are associated with certain characteristics that
Durkheim considers crucial to the understanding of material and
non-material categories. They are:-
a) Externality:
Social facts exist outside the consciousness of the individual. 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 however; social facts are already given in
society. For example language continues to function independently
of any single individual.
b) Constraint:
Social facts exercise 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.
Such a phenomenon is typically social because its basis, its subject is
the group as a whole and not one individual in particular.
c) Independence and Generality
A social fact is that which has more or less a general characteristic 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 order to approach his concept of social facts, Durkheim laid out
some rules for their general understanding. They are:-
1) Social Facts should be treated as things. Social facts are real.
Thus, the belief systems, customs and institutions of society, the
facts of the social world, should be considered as things in the
same way as the objects and events of the natural world. As such
they can be directly observed and objectively measured.
2) All preconceptions must be eradicated. The sociologist must
emancipate himself from the common place ideas that dominate
the mind of the layman and adopt an emotionally neutral
attitude towards what he sets out to investigate.
3) When the sociologist undertakes the investigation of some order
of social facts he must consider them from an aspect that is
independent of their individual manifestations (existed
independently from individual manifestations). The objectivity of
social facts depends on their being separated from individual
facts which express them. They provide a common standard for
members of the society. They exist in the form of legal rules,
moral regulations, social conventions, etc. It is these that the
sociologist must study to gain an understanding of social life.
4) To define social facts with external characteristics. It is necessary
to give a boundary of a social phenomena or fact. Before
studying any subject we need to first define it. There would be
no specificity. By looking its nature and primary characteristics,
we need to define social facts.
5) Social facts are a group phenomenon. Here the sociologist would
study the society not on the basis of individuals but rather in
groups as whole.
In The Rules of Sociological Method, Durkheim has discussed the
nature of social facts as well. He dwells on the subject with
introduction of normal and pathological states of social facts.
Normal social facts are general throughout the society. If the
functioning of the society is taking place on the normal lines then
solidarity would be maintained. (E.g. of crime rate in both
pathological and normal social facts)
Pathological social facts are not general throughout the society.
They exist for a very short span of period in the society.
It is necessary to know the cause of social facts that is in simple
words, to understand its origin. To know the functioning of social
fact is also necessary. Besides understanding the origin we need to
understand its function/effect in the society. Like the effects of
religion, or of laws on the society which have made an impact
towards the society as these are the institution that help to
maintain the solidarity.
Besides cause and effect, differentiation between the individual and
society is necessary. While explaining the social facts we do not
need to understand it in terms of individual understanding rather
we have to understand it in terms of social/society.
In The Rules of Sociological Method, Durkheim aimed to boost
sociology as a valid science for identifying knowledge. He introduced
the term social fact as the focus of his study. The article offers
various explanations of what a social fact is according to Durkheim,
but he best defines the meaning in his last line of the work. A social
fact is every way of acting, fixed or not, capable of exercising on the
individual an external constraint; or again, every way of acting which
is general throughout a given society, while at the same time existing
in its own right independent of its individual manifestations
His goal in establishing a social methodology was two-fold; first, he
wants sociology to be more scientific and move from the realm of
subjectivity to objectivity. And second, he wants to prove the
primacy of the social facts. For Durkheim, social facts must be
treated as things and not as personal experiences, but must also be
observed by a researcher. Durkheim states that, in the past, analysis
was made and combined our ideas with our observations and
comparisons. These social facts, however, possess resistance,
meaning that they cannot be moulded to satisfy any specific
situation but will remain independent researcher, the individual and,
to an extent, the situation even though these facts are born of the
summation of individual experiences.