Social fact
The term social offense was coined by the French sociologist Émile Durkheim ( fait social ). By René King of expression was fait social with sociological facts translated. Social or sociological facts are the subject of empirical social research .
Durkheim's approach
approach
According to Durkheim, a social fact is “(...) any more or less fixed type of action that has the ability to exert an external coercion on the individual; or that occurs in the realm of a given society in general, whereby it has a life of its own independent of its individual expressions. ” This means that every action that takes place and is carried out within society represents a“ social fact ”. However, the act must be of “social interest”. He first directs his attention to comprehensively and empirically grasp the social facts (" What is social fact? ") And to bring them under rules in order to withdraw them from speculation and ideology . In this way he creates space for practical reason (“ How do we want to live? ”).
The objectivity of social facts as social constraints
According to Durkheim, a “social fact” requires a special kind of consideration. Since the observing individual is himself in society and is himself affected by social facts, is involved in them and is influenced by them, the observer must try to detach himself from his subjective perception. In order to be able to observe and describe "social facts", according to Durkheim, it is essential to have the ability to view the facts objectively from the outside.
Example: If one examines currencies, moral concepts, laws, manners and customs sociologically, they all have in common that they exist independently of the individual and are beyond his control. Likewise, everyone exerts a certain compulsion, since we have to come to terms with them. The compulsion is only perceived unconsciously and is only the subject of reflection when one is outside the limits set by the social facts.
“ The first and fundamental rule is to treat sociological facts like things ” (Durkheim). An orientation towards the natural sciences is explicitly required (“ natural inclination of the mind ”). Social facts should be understood like things and not as “ conceptualizations that we find mixed up in all religions. According to Durkheim, this is how one escapes “ideology”. For him, “ethics” is also ideology (just “idea”).
"Social types " are used to group facts or things.
Social causes
The coercion on individuals is exercised through “ public opinion ”. It is a "substrate" (= causal base) that has not been placed in the individual. Their effect on acting , thinking and feeling (“classes of facts”) of individuals is “imperative”. This defines the "social" for Durkheim.
Durkheim later weakened this “compulsion” and spoke of “impose”, since he too did not want to deny the “autonomy of the individual”: On the one hand, humans are social beings - on the other hand, they are individuals. The former has absolute priority at Durkheim. Using the example of suicide , he wants to show that this apparently highly individual phenomenon is also caused by social facts.
Durkheim sees evidence of the existence of the substrate in statistics (the number, accumulations, changes in births, marriages or suicides are social facts), which only records the effects of the substrate, but not its causes themselves. Here he is speaking of the (in turn social) "collective spirit". Basically, Durkheim's general postulate can also be seen here : Explain social issues only through social issues!
Social facts and social change
The social facts are on the one hand relatively stable attributes of social reality, on the other hand they change as a result of the actions of individuals. Analyzing these processes is precisely the task of sociology.
literature
- Émile Durkheim: Rules of the Sociological Method . Neuwied and Berlin 1961 ff. (French original edition: Paris 1895)