william graham sumner has propounded the idea that we can treat social facts as things.
william graham sumner has propounded the idea that we can treat social facts as things.
who has propounded the idea that we can treat social facts as things?
william graham sumner
many social facts, however, have no material form. even the most "individualistic" or "subjective" phenomena, such as love, freedom or suicide, would be regarded by durkheim as objective social facts. individuals composing society do not directly cause suicide: suicide, as a social fact, exists independently in society, and is caused by other social facts (such as rules governing behavior and group attachment), whether an individual likes it or not. whether a person "leaves" a society does not alter the "fact" that this society will "still contain" suicides. suicide, like other immaterial social facts, exists independently of the will of an individual, cannot be eliminated, and is as influential – coercive – as physical laws such as gravity. sociology's task thus consists of discovering the qualities and characteristics of such social facts, which can be discovered through a quantitative or experimental approach (durkheim extensively relied on statistics).
émile durkheim
durkheim distinguished two types of social facts: normal social facts – which, within a society, occur regularly and most often – and pathological social facts – which are much less common.









































section::::principles of sociology.









































according to durkheim, sociologists, without preconceptions and prejudices, must study social facts as real, objective phenomena. durkheim wrote, "the first and most fundamental rule is: consider social facts as things." this implies that sociology must respect and apply a recognized objective, scientific method, bringing it as close as possible to the other exact sciences. this method must at all cost avoid prejudice and subjective judgment.
the rules of sociological method