Part 1: The Rules of Sociological Method (introduction)

Introduction

Until recently, sociologists have little cared to explain and define the method they use to study social facts.  This shouldn’t surprise us.  So far, sociologists such as Spencer, Mill, and Comte, don’t go much farther than talking about societies very generally.  We still don’t have a method for doing sociology.  I have been fortunate to have the time to think about this subject and to come up with a method that I think will prove useful.  Some of these were used and discussed in my previous book, The Division of Social Labor, but here I make them a bit more explicit.  In this way, you, the reader, can see the way we are going in this new field of sociology.

What is a Social Fact?

Before getting to the method, we need to know what facts are “social.”  This is an important question, because we need to know what is unique about the subject matter of sociology.  We all drink, sleep, eat, and think, and perhaps society has an interest in making sure we do these things in a regular manner. But are these really social facts?  Or are they simply things individuals do?  How is sociology different from, say, biology and psychology, both of which are also interested in these things?

In reality, there is in every society a certain group of things which are different from what the natural sciences study.

When I do my duty as a brother, as a wife, or as a citizen, when I fulfill my obligations, pay my debts, take the actions expected of me by law and custom, I am acting in ways outside of my own creation.  I might want to take care of my children, but this isn’t all up to me.  I have specific duties that I in no way created all by myself. In a way, I inherited them, through being a member of society.  You could say I was socialized into them.

The system of signs and words that I use to communicate my thoughts to others, the form of currency I use to pay my debts, the credit card or bank check I use, the practices I follow in my chosen profession – all these things and many more function independently of my use of them.

Here we have the actions, the thoughts and the beliefs which uniquely exist outside each individual’s own consciousness, and so provide a worthy subject for the study of sociology. Not only are these types of conduct outside the thoughts of the individual person, but they have a certain coercive power.  If I try to resist it, I notice this quite readily.

Here then are an order of facts which present a special character: They consist in ways of acting, thinking, and feeling that are external to the individual person, and endowed with a power of coercion.

These social facts are the proper subject matter for sociologists.

To confirm these, let’s take a look at the way we raise our children.  It is quite obvious that all education has consisted of a continual effort to impose on the child manners of seeing, sensing, and acting that they would not otherwise have acquired.  From the very first hours of her birth, we force her to eat, drink and sleep at regular times, and we train her to be neat, calm, and obedient.  Later, we socialize her to be considerate of others, teach her to respect our customs, and prepare her for work.  The goal of education is thus all about socializing each member of society to be proper members of that society.

So, we should not define a social fact as something that is universal – while everyone eats and drinks those things are still not social facts.  What makes something a social fact is the collective aspect of the beliefs, tendencies and practices of a group.

Collective habits don’t exist only in the actions of individuals, but rather express themselves over and over in a form passed on by word of mouth from person to person, by education, or by the written word.  Such is the origin and nature of laws, morals, aphorisms and popular sayings…all of these are still social facts and true even when someone is not following them!

Social facts are something more than the actions of individuals.

Let’s take the examples of marriage or suicide.  These are things that are done by individuals and they can appear quite private in nature. But we also know that certain groups get married at different rates, and that the suicide rate is higher at one point in history than other, and that it varies by age of person as well. Statistical measures allow us a way to isolate the collective aspect from the individual case, by comparing rates across groups and times.  If we look at the averages, we get a certain state of the collective soul.

Sociology is the study of social facts.   A social fact can be recognized by the coercive power it exercises (or is capable of exercising) on individuals.  We can recognize this coercive power by the existence of sanctions – what happens when someone doesn’t follow the rule, practice, or custom? Note that this includes whole ways of being, not just ways of acting.  Everything we do and are that is not biologically determined can be considered a social fact.

A social fact is every way of being and acting, fixed or not, capable of exercising an external constraint on the individual; in other words, it is that which is general in the whole society, independent from individual manifestations.