Critically examine the contribution of Emile Durkheim to the scientific study of society.

Student No. 0913128 Module Code: PM001 Tutor: Panos Dendrinos

David Emile Durkheim was a brilliant sociologist , born in 1858 in France and made his great contribution to sociology with his four major works: the division of labor in society(1893), the rules of sociological method(1895), suicide(1897) and the elementary forms of the religious life(1912)(Jones,1986 ). There were two main theories influenced Durkheim’s works significantly. Firstly, Comte’s perspective on scientific methodology helped Durkheim to investigate society with scientific method; secondly, the expression of debates on the problem of individualism in France after the revolution (Morrison, 1995). Auguste Comte was a French philosopher who held the view of positivism, mainly influenced Durkheim’s works (Craib, 1997). Comte stated the definition of positivism as a scientific movement in the purpose of extending the range of investigation with scientific method to the study of society (Morrison, 1995). Another concept in Comet’s work is society as a whole, which also influenced Durkheim significantly. ‘Society as a whole’ means that every part of a society should be seen and studied as a whole and associated with all other parts of the society—individuals can not be separable from society (Craib, 1997). Despite the theories mentioned above, Durkheim intended to differentiate sociology from biology and psychology especially psychology (Craib, 1997). Therefore, Durkheim introduced a new subject in ‘the rules of sociological method’ (1895)—social facts. Moreover, Durkheim argued that ‘the whole of sociology was based on our fundamental principle, the objective reality of social facts’ and ‘social facts must be studied as things’---social facts referred to social phenomena or factors which should be studied as things ‘external to the individual’ and ‘independent of the observers’ (Lukes, 1973). However, Durkheim’s subject of a social fact is considered by criticisms, Lukes (1973), Lee and Newby (1983) as vague and inadequate, such as standard of identification of social facts is not clear (Craib, 1997). This essay will focus on analyzing Durkheim’s basic sociological method. First, it will examine the notion of social facts that is mainly discussed in ‘the rules of sociological method’. Then it will continue to examine his two main works: ‘suicide’ and ‘the division of labor in society’. Lastly, it will sum up the contribution and constraint of Durkheim’s theories of sociology.

‘The rules of sociological method’ was Durkheim’s second major work of methodological study aiming to introduce the nature of sociological subject matter and classify the progress of sociological investigation (Morrison, 1995). Morrison (1995) continued to point out three main reasons for why Durkheim writing the rules: firstly, he wanted to set up the existence of social realities external to the individual and use scientific method to investigate the realities; secondly, he wanted to distinguish sociology with philosophy by setting up a factual basis for the existence of social phenomenon; thirdly, he wanted to do the sociological investigation by establishing the specific subject matter.

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Before to examine the social facts, Durkheim (1982) claimed that it was better to know what were the facts, which were recognized as ‘social’. Almost all the phenomena that exist in society can be recognize as social, and if under this circumstances, sociology would not have its own subject matter and its criteria would be mixed up with that of biology and psychology(Calhoun and Gerteis, 2007). Therefore, all these individual actions can not be recognized as social facts. In every society, there are existences of social phenomenon that may be studied out side the individual facts (Morrison, 1995). There are two criteria which can define social facts and distinguish social facts with individual facts (Calhoun and Gerteis, 2007): first, the social facts shows obviously feature of existence that is outside the individual; and second, the existence of social facts is prior to the individual, that means social facts are more historical than individual existence.

After set up the reality of social facts, the historical existence that is associated with the individual, Durkheim focus on outlining the characteristics of social facts. In ‘the rules of sociological method’, Durkheim defined a social fact is ‘every way of acting, whether fixed or not, capable of exerting over the individual an external constraint; or which is general over the whole of a given society whilst having an existence of its own, independent of its individual manifestation’(Calhoun and Gerteis, 2007 ). There are three characteristics of social facts can be distinct from others and Morrison(1995) states that those could not be mixed or confused with biological phenomena, and thus established a new various phenomena—social facts: first, those are general in society and scatter in their groups; second, they are out of individuals and independent of individuals will; and third, there is external constraint towards individuals, for example, if someone want to kill his/her grandmother in order to inherit her wealth, the one can not rewrite the law to avoid this illegal action (Craib, 1997). Depend on the characteristics social facts explained above, Durkheim’s maintained that social facts must be independent of individuals and be considered as a part of society exists independently of psychological characteristics.

However, problems still exist in criteria of characteristics of social facts. The definition of social facts mentioned above is just a ‘preliminary definition’ to be a useful guide by which to recognize the basic sociological phenomena (Lukes, 1973). It is argued that Durkheim’s criteria of characteristics of social facts are not clear. The nature of externality, one of Durkheim’s central examples of social facts, is indistinct, for example, there is no evidence shows that how exactly it does restrain us (Craib, 1997). Besides, social facts’ another criteria is constraint, which also be recognized as even more ambiguous by Lukes. Lukes (1973) pointed out that the notion of generality just repeats the ambiguity of constraint that have already mentioned above. For instance, currents of opinion, beliefs and practices, collective sentiments influence individuals to think ,feel and act in certain way when internalized (Lukes, 1973). In addition to ‘constraint’, Lukes (1973) argued that Durkheim extended the concept of constraint too far and claimed that constraint is too narrow as a criterion of social facts to define all the methods that Durkheim used to see the individual affected by social factors.

The concept of social facts was examined mainly between distinguishing from sociology and psychology, and relationship between the social and individual. The next two parts will turn to examine the suicide and the division of labor in society.

Suicide is Durkheim’s third major sociological work published in 1897 (Morrison, 1995). Throughout his works, all of those topics are the basic theories for suicide, which seems to be a phenomenon that is associated with the individual and its ramifying functions (Durkheim, 1951). Lukes (1973) stated that Durkheim’s suicide was a primary attempt that combined many earlier idea and findings theoretically and systematically, and concerned suicide as a social phenomenon. According to Durkheim (1951), suicide can not be explained by its individual forms. Therefore, the formulation of a social theory of suicide led him to focus on the cause of suicide within the framework of sociology, rather than in the psychological states of individuals (Morrison, 1995). Thus, this was a shift from psychological to sociological examination of suicide.

The notion of ‘the social suicide rate’ is significant to the theory of suicide. Durkheim used the social suicide rate to refer to the statistic of suicidal deaths in a specific society and the different extent of suicide rates can be used to measure the type of suicide of a society (Jones, 1986). Rather than looking at individual causes or psychological states, Durkheim turned to looking at the ‘social suicide rate’ from individual countries and wanted to discover whether the suicides in a society can be considered as a whole and studied collectively (Morrison, 1973). Therefore, his central question of suicide was ‘can the rates be studied independently of individual suicide?’, in order to find out the answer, Durkheim made some observations regarding suicide rates (Morrison, 1973): first, different society had different rates; second, suicide rates did not change dramatically during a certain period; third, the stable rates during a certain period revealed that every society had a different social environment with different social characteristics, religions, patterns of family life, and therefore, had different suicide characteristics; and fourth, he also noticed that the fluctuation of suicide was random. Thus, Durkheim indicated that the suicide rate is a phenomenon sui generis; that is, suicide in a society is a fact is separate, distinct and capable of study in its own terms (Durkheim, 1951).

After examining the social suicide rate, he classified four types of suicide according to different degrees and forms of integration (Craib.1997). the four types of suicide is divided into two parts (Morrison, 1973): first, the notion of social integration explained the suicide, that refers to the strength of the social bonds between the individual and society---egoistic and altruistic suicide; second, the notion of social regulation explained suicide, that refers to the constraints of society on individual needs and wants---anomic and fatalistic suicide. Firstly, the egoistic and altruistic suicide is opposite to each other. Egoistic suicide occurs when lack of integration of the individual into society (Craib.1997). If the forces on the individual become stronger, the suicide rate in the society will be greater; the egoistic suicide also be considered when individuals less participate into family life and social life, according to Durkheim (1951). Opposite to egoistic suicide, altruistic suicide results from putting their own lives under risks in order to save others (Craib, 1997). Secondly, the anomic and fatalistic suicide forms also in contrast to each other. Anomic suicide is a continued status in the modern economy, that results from the fail of the regulation which dominate the social life and individuals are unable to behave appropriately in society; and this situation always occurs during periods of social change, such as individual lives and a sudden gains or loss of wealth (Craib, 1997). Under this circumstance, individuals are upset and the suicide rate for the divorced people is higher; and this anomic situation affected divorced men more than divorced women, because men benefit more from the influence of regulation of marriage (Durkheim, 1951). in contrast, the situation that social rules or regulations are strong and powerful and apply firmly, for instance, the practice of suttee refers to a widow might be buried with her dead husband (Craib,1997). This is called fatalistic suicide.

However, there are also some arguments regarding Durkheim’s suicide, such as the definition of suicide and the suicide statistic. Steven lukes (1973) argued that the definition of suicide is also unacceptable because of the philosophical of definition. Durkheim involved self-sacrifice in the definition of suicide, and if we take intentions into consideration, self-sacrifice will be defined as an intention to save others when death will occur, and thus, suicide is defined too simple by just intending to kill oneself without intension to save others (Varty, 2000). When turn to the statistic of suicide, it is argued that the suicide statistics are fail to reflect the ‘real’ in the outside world, just the collection of social context and statistics (Varty, 2000). Even so, Durkheim was trying to show that suicide is not only refers to statistical regularities that it can be considered as a social fact and associated with established systems, that is the conscience collective(Craib,1997).

Refers to another Durkheim’s major work, ‘the division of labor in society’, is the first major theoretical work (Calhoun and Gerteis, 2007). The division of labor is a first study that established a new way of thinking about society and is aiming to, first, link individuals to society and the social bonds; second, seek the relations between nature of these social bonds and function of social connections in society; third, find out if there are changes of system of social links when the society becomes more advanced (morrision, 1973).

Durkheim turned to seeking how social solidarity varies in different societies and solidarity can be showed in two ways, those are ‘mechanical’ and ‘organic’ (Calhoun and Gerteis, 2007). In the mechanical societies, individual is directly connected with society and there are no differences between the individual conscience and the collective conscience (Jones, 1986). That is to say, the relation between individual and society is that individual can not be distinct from the collective as a whole and there is no individual autonomy (Morrison, 1973). In contrast to mechanical solidarity, organic societies shows that labor is specialized in different part of society and individuals connected to each other more than in the mechanical society(Calhoun and Gerteis, 2007). This reveals that individuals turn to rely on each other and become more dependent on specialized economic functions (Morrison, 1973).

In conclusion, although Durkheim’s social facts are ambiguous in some criteria of characteristics, his contribution of introducing a new subject matter, social facts, into sociology can not be ignored. Moreover, Durkheim maintained that social facts were objective and should be seen as things that were external to individual and independently. Furthermore, he distinguished sociology with psychology that is the matter Comte did not realize. His ‘suicide’ was the application of social facts and also suicide itself should be considered as a social fact. Therefore, Durkheim’s contribution is valuable to sociology and also enriches the social science.

Word count: 2198

References:

Calhoun, J. C. and Gerteis, J. (2007) Classical sociological theory
Craib,I (1997) Classical social theory. Oxford: Oxford University
Durkheim, E. (1951). Suicide, a study in sociology. The free press.
Durkheim, E. (1982), The Rules of the Sociological Method, (Ed. by Steven Lukes; trans. by W.D. Halls). New York: Free Press
Lukes, S. (1973) Emile,Durkheim: his life and work. A historical and critical study. Standford university press
Morrison, K. (1995) Marx Durkheim Weber, formation of modern social thought. SAGE publications Ltd.
, R., A. (1986) Emile Durkheim: An Introduction to Four Major Works. The Masters of Sociological Theory. SAGE Publications
Varty, J (2000) Assessing Douglas’ critique of Durkheim, Suicide, Statistics and Sociology. Durheim’s Suicide, A century of research and debate, edited by W.S.F. Pickering and Geoffrey Walford.