What are the rules of sociological method

French sociologist and a positivist Emile Durkheim’s main concern was with social solidarity. He sees
sociology as amelurative because it should be used to improve the society. He formally established the
academic discipline of sociology and the importance of social integration is expressed through
Durkheim’s work. Moreover he believed that the fundamental aim of sociology is to discover social fact,
which according to him is subject matter of sociology.

Durkheim discusses about solidarity in simple and complex society. Simple societies have mechanical
solidarity, where people are easily replaceable. With the increase in size, volume and density of
population, mechanical solidarity changes into organic solidarity, prevalent in complex society. In
complex society solidarity is distributed in different spheres, like judiciary, education, kinship, police,
legislative, etc. Durkheim suggests that in order to understand solidarity, everything needs to be studied
scientifically and know the pathology of the society. Some phenomena might be normal in one society
and pathological in the other. For example, communism is pathological in US but normal in China. A
social fact is normal only in relation with a given phase of development of a particular society.

Morality of the society is reflected through collective consciousness and is reflected in the laws of the
land, art, architecture, music, movies, literature, language, jokes, clothing and food. It is stronger in
simple society, and is reinforced through repressive laws. Its strength keeps on decreasing with the
increase in population. Here restitutive law plays role to reinforce morality. Solidarity also increases with
increased division of labor, because it increases the degree of interdependence. However, degree of
solidarity is less among artists, scientists, women and protestants.

Durkheim deals with normal and pathological. We know that degree of pathology has gone up in the
society if rate of crime increases. This crime is recognized through punishment. According to Durkheim
certain rate of crime is normal in complex society because it reinforces morality. If there is no crime,
there will be pathology because morality will be forgotten.

His main contribution has been to the study of social fact. The source of social fact is society. Social facts
have special characteristics and it consists of manners of acting, thinking and feeling. It is external to
individual, general and coercive by the virtue of which it exercises control. It resonates with the code of
conduct of the society or a group. It does not have biological or psychological aspect. Social fact it
independent of individual manifestation. These are social, or manifestation of collective minds. It is
manifested in both individuals and social structure. Suicide is a social fact and we don’t see it as a
psychological fact.

Social fact are things, i.e. it cannot be modified by the act of individual will. We proceed from things to
ideas instead of going the other way round. If we look at ideas as things, our findings won’t be objective.
If we move from ideas to things, we are at a danger of taking our prejudices as reality. Thus,
psychological reasons are just ideas and not things. Durkheim rejected Comte’s idea of three stages of
society because he went from ideas to things. This is because his categorization of development of
society suggests that all societies undergo the same trajectory of development. But it is not so.
Durkheim had put forth several principles which should be kept in mind during establishing a social fact.
Before using a term we must first scientifically define the term in order to establish facts that have
meaning. The definitions should be objective and should not be based on personal ideas. Facts should
be studied as external things, based on data and should not be based on a priori assumptions. All
preconceptions should be eradicated and sentiments should be shed. Empirical categorization should
also be avoided. One should escape the domain of common sense ideas. Comparison of data can be
done – statistical data of one society; collect data from different society of same social type; compare
existing society with lower level of society which is subjected to same force.

One social fact can be explained only in relation to other social fact. For example, solidarity can be
explained in relation to division of labor. This is called method of correlation. Similar facts can be
clubbed together to form categories. Cause and effect of social fact needs to be studied separately. The
cause should be sought in antecedent social fact and not among state of individual consciousness. For
instance, if we want to study India 50 years back, we have to seek for a society which is under same
social circumstance as India 50 years ago. In this way we can know the pattern of evolution. In order to
know how complex society has evolved we need to study the inner social environment, or how
individuals or societies are associated. Inner social environment is also a social fact.

However, Durkheim did not go without critique. Social fact is so fantastic that it seems unreal. This social
fact works only on super structure, thus takes away from reality of the society. Also, individuals have
certain degree of agency and can themselves shape social fact. Thus it is a two way interaction between
social fact and individual. This has been missed out by Durkheim. Instead, he shows that only social fact
influences individual and not the other way round.