The rules for the explanation of social facts and rules for the constitution of social types

a two chapter summary from the rules of sociological method : The rules for the explanation of social facts and rules for the constitution of social types

1. The rules of sociological method Rules for the constitution of social type and rules for the explanation of social facts Submitted by – Yadwinder S ingh M.Phil. 1845103 Submitted to – Dr. Kiran Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology

2. The rules of sociological methods “Rules of Sociological Methods” of Durkheim was published in the year 1895. The methodological framework for all of his subsequent work was developed in his “The Rules of sociological methods.” He has successfully analyzed social facts which facing up to the methodological problems of using empirical research in scientific study of society . According to Durkheim society is the reality sui generis . It is an independent entity. Only social facts are real. Social facts are objective and are capable of being perceived from outside. Social facts are understood only by sociological laws. There can be no psychological explanation of these facts. Sociology cannot be explained by the principle of utility or individual’s motivation. Its explanation can only be social. Durkheim defines Sociology as a science of Social Facts . According to him Sociology is not merely a theoretic discipline rather it is intimately connected with the practical facts of life. The true nature of social facts lies in the collective or associational characteristic inherent in society. Durkheim set out to establish the specific subject matter and method for the science of sociology in his “The Rules of sociological methods .”

3. There are five sets of rules: Rules for Observing Social Facts. Rules for distinguishing between ‘Normal’ and “Pathological” Social facts. Rules for classifying societies: The Construction of “Types” or “Species ”. Rules for the explanation of Social Facts. Rules for testing sociological explanations.

4. Rules for the Constitution of Social Types According to the second rule in the previous section, a social fact can be labeled "normal" or "pathological" only in relation to a given social "type" or "species." Durkheim's next stop was thus to set out rules for the constitution or classification of such species. In particular, he sought a via media between the historians, for whom each society is unique and incomparable, and the philosophers, for whom different societies are only various expressions of the fundamental attributes of "human nature.” according to Durkheim between confused multitude of historical societies and the unique although ideal, concepts of humanity, there are intermediate entities: these are S ocial S pecies . In other words, Durkheim was after an intermediate entity which would acknowledge the unity required by scientific generalization as well as the diversity inherent in the facts . How do we set about constituting S ocial Species? Describing in entirety and than comparing. Only important characteristics. Durkheim called ‘Social morphology’ that part of sociology concerned with the constitution and classification of social types.

5. Continued… Durkheim spoke of the types as social species and defined them in terms of their degrees of composition. Classification is based on the principle that societies differ in degree of complexity. Durkheim calls the simplest-aggregate, “society of one segment” “the horde.” 1. A hypothetical ‘horde’ which was the simplest of all human groupings. 2. The aggregation of these into “simple poly-segmental” societies consisting of clans within tribes. 3. The aggregation of tribes themselves into confederations to form “poly-segmental societies simply compounded.” 4. The aggregation of these unions of tribes to form larger societal forms like the city-states which were “poly-segmental societies doubly compounded.”

6. Continued… He found it necessary to specify and employ two rather different kinds of classification. The one above was a large framework for descriptive, comparative and analytical study which was seen before in Spencer, Hobhouse and others. But in addition to it Durkheim found it necessary to construct a ‘marked typology’—consisting of two extreme polarized models, in order to interpret the most significant pattern of change. So his treatise of the Division of Labour in Society is a large scale theory of social change. For which Durkheim constructed a clear and twofold typology of a mechanical type of solidarity in the simplest-societies and an organic type of solidarity possessing a complex differentiation.

7. Rules for the Explanation of Social Facts The causes of a social fact cannot be found in the functions of a social fact . Durkheim had dislike for any "teleological" confusion of the function of a social fact with its cause. This dislike followed naturally from Durkheim's preventive rule of sociological method . “A social fact sometimes exists without serving any vital need or desire whatsoever, either because it has never done so, or because its utility has passed while it persists from force of habit.” Needs and desires may intervene to hasten or delay social development, but they cannot themselves create any social fact; and even their involvement is the effect of more fundamental social causes. Therefore when one undertakes to explain a social phenomenon, the efficient cause which produces it and the function it fulfills must be investigated separately.

8. Continued… But what was thus denounced as teleological was at least equally criticized as psychologistic , for Durkheim regarded these as no more than different descriptions of the same methodological blunder. Indeed , if society is only a system of means set up to achieve certain ends, then these ends must surely be individual, for prior to society only individuals could exist. The origin and development of society would thus be the result of individual minds, and the laws of sociology no more than corollaries of those of psychology. The organization of the family would thus be the consequence of the conjugal and parental emotions; economic institutions, that of the desire for wealth; morality, that of self-interest informed by the principle of utility; and religion, that of those emotions provoked by fear of nature or awe at the charismatic personality, or even the religious "instinct" itself. Durkheim regarded such "explanations" as inadequate to that which was to be explained -- namely, a group of facts external to the individual which exercises a coercive power over him: " It is not from within himself that can come the external pressure which he undergoes; it is therefore not what is happening within himself which can explain it ."

9. Continued… Here Durkheim faced two common objections : The first was that, since the sole elements of which society is composed are individuals, then the explanation of social phenomena must lie in psychological facts. To this objection Durkheim's habitual response was to revert to the biological analogue -- i.e., the constituent molecules of the living cell are crude matter, yet the association of such cells produces life. The whole, in other words, is something greater than the sum of its parts . Similarly, the association of individual human beings creates a social reality of a new kind, and it is in the facts of that association rather than the nature of associated elements that the explanation for this new reality is to be found. Between sociology and psychology, therefore, there exists the same break in continuity as is found between biology and the physical or chemical sciences: "... every time a social phenomenon is directly explained by a psychological phenomenon ," Durkheim thus concluded, " we may rest assured that the explanation is false ."

10. Continued… Acknowledging that society, once formed, is the proximate cause of social phenomena, however, a second objection insisted that the original causes of the association itself were psychological in nature. But however far back in history we go, Durkheim answered, the fact of association appears to be the most obligatory of all, for it is the origin of all other obligations. We are born into a family, granted a nationality, and given an education, without our choosing any of them; and it is these associations which in turn determine those more "voluntary" obligations in which we subsequently acquiesce. All societies are born of other societies, Durkheim concluded, and " in the whole course of social evolution there has not been a single time when individuals have really had to consult together to decide whether they would enter into collective life together, and into one sort of collective life rather than another ."

11. Continued… Durkheim thus arrived at another rule: The determining cause of a social fact must he sought among the antecedent social facts and not among the states of the individual consciousness . But the arguments which lead to this rule, Durkheim then added , apply equally to the function of a social fact -- while a social fact may have repercussions which serve the individual, this is not the immediate reason for its existence; on the contrary, its function consists in the production of socially useful effects. Durkheim thus complemented the rule above with a second: The function of a social fact must always be sought in the relationship that it bears to some social end.

12. Continued… But in which among its innumerable antecedent conditions is the determining cause of a social fact to be found? If the distinctive condition for the emergence of social (as opposed to psychological) phenomena consists in the fact of association, Durkheim argued, then social phenomena must vary according to how the constituent elements in a society are associated. Durkheim called this the inner environment of a society, and thus proposed still another rule: The primary origin of social processes of any importance must be sought in the constitution of the inner social environment. The arguments presented in support of this rule largely reproduce the discussion of "social volume" and "dynamic density" found in Book Two of The Division of Labor.

13. Continued… But doesn't this " inner environment " itself depend on other social causes, either inherent within the society itself, or involving interaction with other societies? Durkheim admitted that there are no " first causes " in science, and that a fact is " primary " only in the sense that it is general enough to explain many others. But the " inner social environment ," he insisted, is precisely such a fact. The more specialized environments of particular groups within a society also affect its functions; but these groups are themselves subject to the influence of the general internal association, and are commensurately less important. A similarly reduced significance was granted to the external environment of neighboring societies: first, because its influence can be felt only through the prior mediation of the internal environment; and second, because this would make present social facts dependent on past events. The second consequence was particularly objectionable, for Durkheim always insisted that the relationship between past and present states of any society was merely chronological, and could be rendered causal only at the excessive cost of postulating, as had Comte and Spencer, a metaphysical "inner tendency" in social evolution.

14. Continued… Finally, it is only in relation to the inner social environment that the "utilitarian value" (function) of a social fact can be measured; for among the changes caused by that environment, only those are useful which correspond in some way with the most essential conditions of society itself. Moreover , the inner social environment alone can account for the undeniable diversity and complexity of "useful" social facts without preference to rather random and unplanned causal hypotheses; and this again indicates the extent to which the constitution of qualitatively distinct social types is connected to their explanation by a variety of connected conditions

15. Continued… The rules thus established enabled Durkheim aptly to characterize his own conception of collective life by contrast with those of Hobbes and Rousseau, on the one hand, and Spencer, on the other. The first two thinkers viewed the individual as "real" and society as artificial, the latter being imposed upon the former in order to secure certain collective advantages. Spencer, by contrast, viewed society as natural because it expressed certain tendencies of individual human nature, and thus its imposition by force represented an abnormal condition. Durkheim's own theory, as we have seen, contains elements of both -- he agreed with Hobbes and Rousseau that constraint is an essential feature of social facts, and with Spencer that society is a part of nature. But precisely because the constraint of society is the consequence of its natural superiority, there is no need to resort to Hobbes's or Rousseau's "social contract" in order to explain the individual's subservience; and inversely, precisely because this natural superiority derives not from Spencer's individual, but from a social reality sui generis , the constraint it exercises is not merely physical, but also moral and intellectual. It is that superiority of which religion provided the earliest, symbolic representation, and science the later, more exact explanation

16. References Jones,R.J .(1986) Emile Durkheim: An Introduction to Four Major Works . Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. Durkheim,E .(2013) The Rules of Sociological Method . London: Palgrave Macmillan Press Ritzer,G. (2010) Sociological Theory . New Delhi: Rawat Publications.

17. Thank you