Page 24 - DLIS407_INFORMATION AND LITERATURE SURVEY IN SOCIAL SCIENCES

Unit 3: Social Science Discipline: Sociology and History

find solutions, to understand the nature of these problems and to ameliorate the condition of the poor Notes
masses that were living a life of object poverty, crime and delinquency, and other social evils.
Besides the idea of social progress, these scholars also realised that poverty and its related social evils
were not providential but had its roots in the forces of social change which the Industrial revolution
in England had set in motion. Thus, the idea that poverty was socially created and could thereby be
removed came to be accepted.
In his book Montesquieu and Rousseau, published in 1892, Durkheim (1960: 3-13) laid down the
general conditions for the establishment of a social science (which also apply to Sociology). Let us
look at them.
(i) Science, he pointed out, is not coextensive with human knowledge or thought. Not every
type of question the mind can formulate can be tested by science. It is possible for something
to be the object of the philosopher or artist and not necessarily the stuff of science at all.
Thus, science deals with a specified, area — or a subject matter of its own, not with total
knowledge.
(ii) Science must have a definite field to explore. Science is concerned with things, objective
realities. For social science to exist it must have a definite subject matter. Philosophers,
Durkheim points out, have been aware of ‘things’ called laws, traditions, religion and so
on. But the reality of these was in a large measure dissolved by their insistence on dealing
with these as manifestations of human will. Inquiry was thus concentrated on the internal
will rather than upon external bodies of data. So it is important to look things as they
appear in this world.
(iii) Science does not describe individuals but types or classes of subject matter. If human
societies be classified then they help us in arriving at general rules and discover regularities
of behaviour.
(iv) Social science, which classifies the various human societies, describes the normal form
of social life in each type of society, for the simple reason that it describes the type itself;
whatever pertains to the type is normal and whatever normal is healthy.
(v) The subject matter, of a science yields general principles or ‘laws’. If societies were not
subject to regularities, no social science would be possible. Durkhiem further points out
that since the principle that all the phenomena of the universe are closely interrelated has
been found to be true in the other domains of nature, it is also valid for human societies,
which are a part of nature. In putting forth the idea that there is a continuity of the natural
and social worlds, Durkheim has been strongly influenced by Comte.
(vi) Although there is continuity between the natural and social worlds, the social is as distinctive
and autonomous a sphere of subject matter as either the biological or the physical. Durkheim
was very much against the view held by some scholars that everything in society should be
reduced to human volition. Categories of human will and volition, he points out, belong to
psychology not social science. If social science is really to exist, societies must be assumed
to have a certain nature, which results from the nature and arrangement of the elements
composing them.
(vii) Finally, to discern the uniformities, types and laws of society we need a method. The
methods of science applicable in the field of the natural sciences are valid within the social
field.

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