Emile Durkheim- Lecture 1

This is very useful site about Durkheim, besides my favorite Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89mile_Durkheim

http://www.bolender.com/Sociological%20Theory/Durkheim,%20Emile/durkheim,_emile.htm

Sociology as Science

Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)

He was the first to suggest sociology as a discipline like nature science.
Max Weber- interpretation of meaning of social action, while Durkheim taking Structure approach.

Personal and career background
Grown up in a Jewish family, where Jewish law strictly observed. The Jewish religion background may have influenced him in two ways:
- He interested in social solidarity may be attributed to his Jewish training and family atmosphere and his identification to a familial, tribal collective group
- His view on religion, especially emphasis on religious ritual.

To Durkheim, science as vocation, Mauss “ by vocation and in an environment animated by political and moral will to devote his life to the study of social question.”

August Comte and Herbert Spence’s influence on “sociology as science”
Both adapted evolutionary framework in their theories of human social development.

Comet’s two fold division of sociology

1. Social statics: at each moment in history, individual and groups are joined to one another in particular way- social cohesion (noted: Durkheim’s approach is systemic social solidarity)
2. Social dynamics: social evolution, social change from one form of solidarity to another, Durkheim, however against linear concept of social evolution, he suggests past events are not necessarily fully determining today’s society. “social change is not fully determined by the past” (Elem 120). Karl Marx is for linear social
evolution.

Herbert Spence (1820-1903)

He thinks that social evolution as part of general natural evolution, which is increasing differentiation and specialization; thus, socially, increased division of labour and development of harmonious mutual dependence through free exchange of individuals.

Spence’s individualism sociology: a powerful ideological force at that time, like Marx, Durkheim against liberal economics of that time which were more ideological than scientific. Durkheim thinks the explanation of social events should not search the individual motives and intention but in term of social structure causes.

Mark’s influence to Durkheim

“Division of labour in society” Durkheim focuses on labour, echoes Marx’s idea, on causal flow start from material substratum, eg, population density, interaction via group structure.

Durkheim against economic materialism:-
- Causal connection ran in both direction between material substratum and mental phenomena
- Marxist economic determinism “unscientific” assuming certain factors had causal pre-eminence when that could only by a hypothesis, the presupposition cannot not be proven.

How did Durkheim treat “sociology” as “science”

Sociology is not merely study of individual, different from psychology, he coins

Social Fact “The rule of sociological method”
(Note: rule here is not laws of method, is provisional, practically, strategically employed to facilitate investigation of social phenomena)
The following is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89mile_Durkheim#Theories_and_ideas
Social facts

Durkheim was concerned primarily with how societies could maintain their integrity and coherence in the modern era, when things such as shared religious and ethnic background could no longer be assumed. In order to study social life in modern societies, Durkheim sought to create one of the first scientific approaches to social phenomena. Along with Herbert Spencer, Durkheim was one of the first people to explain the existence and quality of different parts of a society by reference to what function they served in keeping the society healthy and balanced, and is thus sometimes seen as a precursor to functionalism. Durkheim also insisted that society was more than the sum of its parts. Thus unlike his contemporaries Ferdinand Tönnies and Max Weber, he focused not on what motivates the actions of individual people (methodological individualism), but rather on the study of social facts, a term which he coined to describe phenomena which have an existence in and of themselves and are not bound to the actions of individuals. He argued that social facts had an independent existence greater and more objective than the actions of the individuals that composed society and could only be explained by other social facts rather than, say, by society's adaptation to a particular climate or ecological niche.

Sociological explanation causality: seek the cause of phenomenon, determine the effect.

Methodological Individualism vs Structural Individualism

To understand the way which a society conceives itself and world around it, we must consider the nature of society not only nature of individual.

Methodological individualism is a philosophical method aimed at explaining and understanding broad society-wide developments as the aggregation of decisions by individuals. In the most extreme version, the "whole" is nothing but the "sum of its parts" (atomism). It has also been described as "reductionism," a reduction of the explanation of all large entities by reference to smaller ones. It should, however, be noted that methodological individualism does not imply political individualism, although methodological individualists like Friedrich Hayek and Karl Popper were opponents of collectivism. A specific formulation of methodological individualism might also incorporate hypotheses about the relations of individuals to society.

Social Fact is:- the social structures and cultural norms and values that are external to the individual.

every way of acting, whether fixed or not, which is capable of exercising an external constraint on the individual; or which is general throughout a given society, whilst having an existence of its own, independent of its individual manifestations.

Social constraint: different from habit, which dominate within, like social beliefs and practices act on us from outside. Social constraint comes from the prestige with which certain representations are invested.

Problem in distinguishing the habit or social constraint. Sometimes, social constrain can become habit. Therefore hard to identify social facts.

Three groups of social facts:
1. Morphological structure e.g. density of population
2. social institution e.g. family, economic political religious institution
3. Social current, e.g. opinion, moral concept, religious dogmas, legal rules.

Social current --> way of being--> institution

Therefore, social facts can be material and immaterial, classified along a continuum, from minimal to maximal crystallization or institutionalization.

Rules for observing social facts:

1. considering the social facts as things. Objectivity- a thing cannot be modified simply by an act of will; to change it requires some degree of strenuous effort.

Thing :- is an object of knowledge which understanding does not naturally penetrate.

Phenomenon (as it appears)
Noumenon (as it is)

To gain understanding by observation and experiment, it is progressing process from the outside and external to the least visible and most profound; to adopt a particular attitude towards social facts, external to the individual; mentality of group different from that of individual, it has own laws to separate sociology from psychology.

2. Social facts can be normal, facts which are as they should be
or abnormal (pathological), fact which ought to be something other than what they are identify normal.

That is to say there is possibility for social reform. Social action reform, need to address “function”.

19th century, popular theories for social evolution is each society at its particular level of evolution, has its own “normal” and “pathological” social facts
(problem: is the society in transition, has it stabilized? How to determine?)