Page 25 - DLIS407_INFORMATION AND LITERATURE SURVEY IN SOCIAL SCIENCES

Information and Literature Survey in Social Sciences

Notes 3.2.1 Sociology as a Study of Social Facts

In defining the subject matter of sociology two tasks are involved (a) 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 sociology. Durkheim (1950: 3) 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”.

3.2.2 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

According to Durkheim, the following the key types of social facts:

y 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.
y Secondly, there are institutionalised 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.
y Thirdly, there are social facts, which are not institutionalised. Such social facts have not yet
acquired crystallised forms. They lie beyond the institutionalised norms of society. Also this
category of social facts has not attained a total objective and independent existence comparable
to the institutionalised ones.
Also their externality to and ascendancy over and above individuals is not yet complete. These social
facts have been termed as social currents. For example, sporadic currents of opinion generated in
specific situations; enthusiasm generated in a crowd; transitory outbreaks in an assembly of people;
sense of indignity or pity aroused by specific incidents, etc. All the above mentioned social facts form
a continuum and constitute social milieu of society.
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.

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