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Durkheim believed that one social fact can only be studied by looking at another social fact.
Social facts according to Durkheim are money or the lack of it, that can be objectively studied by sociology.
Social Facts cont...
First type of social fact - material, society, money, credit. The social structure,
including the state,
the church. And morphological features - buildings,
populations, communication and transport system. Morphological merely means - changeable.
Second type of social facts - non-
materialist, ideal social facts, such as morality, collective beliefs, sentiments, social pressures or currents/trends.
Social Facts cont...
Durkheim believed that it was these social facts that constrained people?s behaviour. Your options are limited because these social facts give a limit to possible behaviour, they are prescriptive, prohibitions and environmental limitations.
Durkheim concentrates on the material social facts as observable and therefore as indicators of non-
material social facts.
So Durkheim searches for correlation between material observable social facts. So his methodology is positivist.
Epistemology is positivist, his ontology is realist, his method is positivist.
Social Solidarity
"The totality of beliefs and sentiments common to average citizens of the same society forms a determinate system which has its own life; one may call it the collective or common consciousness." (E. Durkheim, 1893)
Division of Labour - and its effect on Social Solidarity.
How societies are bound together.
How societies establish and maintain order and stability.
How they establish and maintain identity of the community and the individual.
Durkheim views the Law as an indicator of how solidarity works in society.
A change in law correlates with a change in solidarity or the social structure.
Mechanical Solidarity
Punitive Law is according to Durkheim an indicator of Mechanical solidarity.
Punitive law is law based on punishment. Imprisonment, exile, amputation, whipping,
execution etc?
Mechanical Solidarity is a solidarity maintained by tradition, religion, the church, specifically feudal society and primitive society.
The term mechanical is used because the solidarity is rigid and fixed, unchanging, not evolving.
Organic Solidarity
Restitute Law is an indicator of Organic solidarity
Restitute law is law based on the restitution of property rather than on the punishment of transgression. The person who committed the crime must restore the property which the victim was deprived of. Fines.
Organic solidarity is correlated with modern ?civilization?.
Flexible, adaptable because it relies on social interdependence derived from technical division of labour, or specification of labour division.
Organic is used to give the idea of a living system.
Descriptive Summary
The Organic (or Biological) Analogy
Durkheim is trying to bring out the distinction between mechanical and organic solidarity.
In simple terms the biological analogy is that of viewing society using the same descriptive terms as you would to describe the human body.
Society has a unique life beyond that of the individuals who comprise it.
Central to Durkheims theory is "that social life contains social facts that function as collective symbols through which society becomes conscious of itself." (A. Swingwood, 1999)
Just as organisms evolve so do societies and this is how social change occurs.
Anomie
As a result of the weakening of the collective consciousness prevalent in mechanical solidarity, organic solidarity has weakened the moral regulation and social integration that was rigid in mechanical solidarity.
In other words the loss of a sense of order and stability. The loss of regulation and integration results in what Durkheim calls anomie.
An indicator of this non-materialist social fact (anomie) according to Durkheim is Suicide at the individual level and social unrest at the collective level.
Suicide
What is the relationship between social life and individual behaviour?
Durkheim wishes to show the relevance of the social in the lives of individuals,
that it is a controlling factor.
"Suicide rates vary between societies but show regular patterns within societies over time. Durkheim used this as evidence that there are consistent social forces that influence suicide rates." (Giddens, 2001, p.11)
Even a personal act such as suicide may have social forces shaping it.
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