Daniel Anthonipillai 12/01/21

TA: Amanda Pichette

Professor: Christopher Hurl

SOCI 300-Durkheim Paper

Emile Durkheim and Karl Marx were two of the many sociologists that focused on the division

of labor. Readers see Durkheim’s theories like the collective conscience, solidarity, and

regulation. The real issue is what Durkheim defines as a “social fact” and the phenomena

sociologists consider to be or not to be social facts. Durkheim defines “social fact” as an

external, constraining, and general condition or circumstance independent to the individual that

determines one’s course of action. The issue readers see is whether sociologists should or should

not limit their research on their research to social facts. Sociologists should limit their research to

social facts because Durkheim analyzes them on a general level, meaning that social facts are

generalized and deals with a collective and not an individual basis.

The idea of social facts is currently flawed because of the meaning pertaining to individual

functions, such as eating, sleeping, and reasoning. Durkheim (1895) goes on to explain that the

idea of social phenomena comes not from instinct, but through social norms and legislations.

“[…], I perform duties which are defined, externally to myself and my acts, in law and in

custom. […], for I did not create them; I merely inherited them through my education.”

(Durkheim, 1895: 2) Social norms and social activity come from the education system, where

professors teach readers and many other students the behavior and rules of society. Durkheim

(1895) tells readers that social facts are external, meaning that we are not born with beliefs and

practices, they exist outside us and are learned. Durkheim (1895) contrasts this criterion with a

church-member, whose religious skills and practices were given to him at birth; however, given
his previous existence after being inducted suggests that the existence of these religious beliefs

came from outside his existence.

Durkheim also mentions that with these social facts being external, they are also constrained.

Individuals see this because they are born into norms and customs, not with it; the same way we

are not born in the world of natural sciences but influenced by it. “Of course, when I fully

consent and conform to them, this constraint is felt only slightly, if at all, and is therefore

unnecessary.” (Durkheim, 1895: 3)

Durkheim then states that social facts are general. According to Durkheim (1895), the reason

why social facts are general is because they deal with a collective background. “It is, however,

the collective aspects of the beliefs, tendencies, and practices of a group that characterize truly

social phenomena.” (Durkheim, 1895: 8) The thing about social facts being general is that they

are different depending on where and how a society operates. Religion is a facility that depends

entirely on the rituals, traditions, and which deity/deities to follow. Education and skills needed

for future careers are not embedded at birth, they are taught outside of our realm of comfort and

existence. These facilities and societies are meant to be treated as the object of analysis. If social

facts are stable and general, then they’d be considered normal. If social facts are unstable and

anomalous, then they’d be considered morbid. The generalization found in social facts exist “by

a privilege of which we find no example in the biological realm…” (Durkheim, 1895: 8)

Looking at the social phenomena that legitimize social facts, they become a part of collective

representations, where collective values are represented by condensed ideas of society within any

subject matter. Readers and contemporary sociologists see this with myths, traditions, customs,

and religious doctrines. Collective representations reflect a reality different from that of the
individual. According to Durkheim (1895), biological and psychological phenomena consist of

representations and actions existing only as an individual representation.

Durkheim (1897) explains that suicide isn’t a social fact because it focuses on the individual

representation, but the social suicide rate is. The social suicide rate is the number of suicides in a

specific society. Durkheim uses examples of how the 1873 financial crisis in Vienna didn’t just

increase the number of suicides in that city, but it also had the same effect of increasing the

chances of suicide in Frankfurt. Taking Vienna into consideration, the number of suicides went

from 141 in 1872, to 153 in 1873, and then 216 in 1874. From 1872 to 1874, the suicide rate

increased by 53 per cent, from 1871 to 1874 it the rate was 73 per cent; with 1871 having 48

suicides, 1872 having 44, 43 suicides in 1873, and 73 in 1874. In Frankfurt-on-Main, an average

of twenty-two suicides were committed annually way before 1874. By 1874, the average

increased by 32 to 45 per cent. “The number of bankruptcies is a barometer of adequate

sensitivity, reflecting the variations of economic life.” (Durkheim, 1897: 5)

Contemporary sociologists would see the social phenomena of religion being considered as a

social fact. Based on Durkheim’s readings (1893), because religion is a part of the collective

conscience, the gatherings of peoples done by the entirety of customs and beliefs, it changes in

the form of mechanical solidarity. Mechanical solidarity is the union of members in a society

doing or feeling the same thing, typified by feelings of likeness. “Since religious force is nothing

other than the collective and anonymous force of the clan, […], the totemic emblem is like the

visible body of the god.” (Durkheim, 1912: 49) Durkheim mentions the totemic emblem, which

is thought to interact with a given group to serve as their symbol. The object, being their god is a

part of the group’s rites because of the impact dealt through a system of religious actions.
 Although social facts can fit into collective facilities like education and religion, it is not

entirely fit into crime. As previously mentioned by Durkheim (1895), the individual conscience,

which relies on the collective conscience, has nothing to do with social phenomena or any social

structures. The thing about criminal activity, is that the collective conscience has no part in it.

“Thus, since there cannot be a society in which the individuals do not differ more or less from

the collective type, it is also inevitable that, among these divergences, there are some with a

criminal character.” (Durkheim, 1895: 23) The reason why social fact isn’t fit into crime is

because “we must not say that an action shocks the common conscience because it is criminal,

but rather that it is criminal because it shocks the common conscience.” (Durkheim, 1893: 6)

What Durkheim is getting at, that contemporary sociologists wouldn’t consider about crime, is

that the individual who commits the crime (in other words, the criminal) would impact the

collective conscience. Not the other way around.

To conclude, religion and education are phenomena considered to be social facts. Crime is

not a social fact because of an inverse relationship between the collective and individual

consciences. This means that instead of the collective conscience depending on the individual

conscience, the individual conscience becomes the dependent variable instead. Research on

social facts should be limited because of the general and collective foundation they represent. As

Durkheim believes that social sciences should be studied in the same manner as natural sciences,

readers see that handling natural sciences would be different because of too many variables.

Durkheim’s perspective on suicide explains that when a society is affected from an event outside

their existence, everyone suffers in that society. Religion is the gathering of people in a society

sharing the same values and goals in order to build intimate relationships.
Bibliography

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