SOCIAL FACTS AND SOCIAL ORDER: THE LEGACY OF DURKHEIM

KEY POINTS

1) E. Durkheim’s early influences: Comte and Spencer

2) E. Durkheim’s key contributions:

i) The Division of Labour in Society: “integration”; “collective conscience”; “mechanical and

organic solidarity”; “repressive and restitutive law”

ii) The Rules of Sociological Method: “social facts”: material and nonmaterial

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THE LEGACY OF DURKHEIM

• E. Durkheim (1858-1917):

• Founder of modern sociology;

• Inherited ideas from Comte and Spencer;

• Product of his own context: defeat of France in Franco-Prussian war (1870);

Biography:

• Jewish, from a family of rabbis but became an atheist;

• Worked as a university professor in well-known universities e.g., University of Bordeaux and the
Sorbonne;

• Involved politically and interested in socialism as a system in which moral principles of society
must be discovered through scientific sociology.

DURKHEIM’S KEY CONTRIBUTIONS

• Concept of Integration- inclusion of all individuals in society regardless of their differences to

maintain social order i.e., “unity within diversity”; (refers to the inclusion of all individuals in
society regardless of their differences, all individuals in society was paramount of creating a
strong and cohesive society)

• Focused on sociology as the scientific study of all features in society that would enable a well
integrated, cohesive society; (wanted sociology to be a scientific study within all of society,
uncover all the different ways to establish society in a cohesive collaborative manner)

• 2 two main themes in Durkheim’s work:

i) Priority of the social over the individual; (larger social forces are more important than the
individual)(shape influence what and individual can and cannot do)

ii) Society can be studied scientifically (via the methods of empirical research as the natural
sciences, observations, findings etc)
DURKHEIM’S KEY CONTRIBUTIONS

• 1st major work: The Division of Labour in Society:

i) Mechanical solidarity (small scale societies): people bonded through similar activities and
responsibilities, sharing a strong “collective conscience” i.e., similar ideas, norms and values re:
what is acceptable and prohibited following repressive law; (describe how earlier societies
functioned together based on similar perspectives, shared activities and responsibilities, division
of labour was very minimal, self sufficiency for direct consumption, extracting from the
environments to survive (hunting fishing foraging), strong collective conscious)

ii) Organic solidarity (modern industrialized societies): people bond through functional
interdependence i.e., performing different specialized tasks and roles and following restitutive
law.( taken on more diverse roles, as individuals perform different tasks collective conscious
decreases as they don’t share the same values and norms, yet interdependent on one another
based on different roles, because we don’t produce what we need we will seek others,
education – school sick – doctor etc)(restitutive law, i.e taking someone to civil court, criminal
court etc)

DURKHEIM’S KEY CONTRIBUTIONS

• 2nd major work: The Rules of Sociological Method:

• Concept of Social Facts: ways of acting, thinking and feeling that are external to, and coercive of
individuals;

• Social Facts: constrained by cultural norms, values and social institutions e.g., family, religion,
education, law, etc.

• Sociology as the scientific study of social facts: material and non-material.

DURKHEIM’S KEY CONTRIBUTIONS

• Material Social Facts: directly observable, external to, and coercive of individuals e.g.,
technology, housing, laws, language, etc.

• Non-material Social Facts: moral forces external to, and coercive of individuals e.g., norms and
values;
• Values and norms not determined by individuals but by complex interactions between
individuals and social institutions that preceded them e.g., family, religion, education, law, etc.

• Sociology to study social facts along a continuum, beginning with material social facts.