Durkheim has defined sociology as science of social fact .Social facts are fundamental bases of his sociological thought Durkheim explained social fact in “Rule of Sociological Method’. Durkheim’s interpretation of social facts is an important constituent of its methodology. According to him, a ‘social fact is a phase of behaviour (thinking, feeling, or acting) which can objectively be observed and has a coercive or compelling nature. It is coercive in the sense that collective consciousness specifically differs from individual consciousness; that social facts belong to the category of collective consciousness; and that this collective consciousness in its ‘collective’ capacity is endowed with a power to impose its authority upon the individual members regardless of their individual desires. But, in this connection, Durkheim is pointedly precise that a social fact is not purely a psychological fact. Thus Durkheim draws to lines of demarcation-one between collective consciousness and individual consciousness, and the other between a social fact and a purely psychological phenomenon. For this purpose, he introduces two objective criteria : exteriority and constraint, Durkheim places great importance on his definition of social fact in terms of exteriority and constraint.
Although, it is very unfortunate that the precise meaning of criteria has never been clear, yet, from his fundamental methodological postulate, social facts must be treated as things; and Durkheim infers that social facts must possess two important characteristics of a thing: it must be exterior to and not identical with the idea in the mind of the individual, and it must impose a certain constraint on him. In other words, ‘exteriority’ refers to the fact that social facts exist outside of, or exterior to, individual consciousness, while constraint refers to the compelling nature of the social facts or collective consciousness. In short, “social facts have a constraining influence over the individual mind, while remaining exterior to it.”
The substantive doctrine of the exteriority of social fact is identical with “angelic realism” which asserts that society is a reality suigeneris, above and apart from the individuals. The evidence adduced by Durkheim in defence of this doctrine is of four main types :
(1) The first is alleged heterogeneity of individual and collective states of mind. Thus, it is asserted that in a time of national danger the intensity of the collective feeling of patriotism is most greater than that of any individual feeling.
(2) The second type of argument stresses the difference in individual attitudes and behaviour which results from the group situation. Ina crowd the individual thinks, feels, and acts in a different fashion. And then thinks Durkheim, that a new to react upon the sentiments and behaviour of the individuals.
(3) The third type of evidence is supplied by the uniformities of social Statistics. For instance, many types of social facts, like crimes, marriages, and suicides, show a surprising degree of numerical consistency sometimes maintaining uniformity in rate of change.
(4) A fourth line of argument is based optical theory of emergence. In this context Durkheim interprets that we must assume that society is not reducible to the proportion of individual minds but that it constitutes a reality suigenris which emerges out of the collection and interaction of individual minds.
The other characteristics of the social fact, the constraint, which exercises over the individual, may be viewed as a simple corollary of its externality. The social fact being real and external from that of the individual’s environment and expense upon him a certain constraint; the hallmark of an independent reality is the resistance it opposes to our volitions and the counter-pressure it exerts ton our behaviour. Moreover, the aspect of social constraint enters into the direct experience of the individual.”
On the basis of above, Durkheim defines the social fact as follows :
“A social fact is every way of acting, fixed or not, capable of exercising on the individual an external constraint.” He further asserts that social fact “consists of ways of acting, thinking and feeling, external to the individual, and endowed with a power of coercion, by reason of which they control him.”
Furthermore, in the following quotation Durkheim’s definition of social fact has been more: “These are ways of acting, thinking and feeling that present the noteworthy property of existing outside the individual consciousness.”
Durkheim again interpreted social facts in another way as:
“These ways of thinking could not be confused with biological phenomena, since they consist of representations and actions; nor with psychological phenomena, which exist only in the individual consciousness and through it. They constitute thus a new variety of phenomena; and it is for them exclusively that the term ‘social’ ought to be applied.”
Social facts are of two kinds-
The normal and the pathological.
The normal social facts work towards integrating the solidarity of social life, while pathological social facts operate adversely; that is, towards the disintegration of social life. Social facts are observable in the form of various moral, religious, judicial and logical rules and sets of customary beliefs and thoughts.
Social facts are, thus, the products of the collective consciousness. And as the collective consciousness, is far superior to individual consciousness, Social facts always work for the welfare of the individual. Thus, social facts have a moral basis and prescribe some duties for every individual to perform. The performance of these duties is essential in the greater interest of the society. An analysis of social facts, therefore, must first be attempted in any pertinent interpretation of social phenomena.
In brief, Durkheim’s discussion on rules of sociological method tries to find out a scientific method to study science of socially. For this, he identified the notion of social facts and laid down rules for their observation, classification and explanation. In addition, he also focused on the approaches to explain social facts and logic of explanation. In rules of sociological method, Durkheim outlined the various types of society and lastly the relevance of comparative method in the field of social sciences.