"What is a social fact?", thus Emile Durkheim began his review in his book, The Rules of Sociological Method, published by the New York Free Press (1982).
In this 268-page book, Durkheim argues that sociology needs to differ from other fields, such as biology or psychology, in explaining social facts. As he explains, both biology and psychology consider social events as all events involving human beings, such as eating, sleeping, thinking, and so on, and are regularly referred to as social facts. In this field, sociology should have a distinction between biology and psychology and not overlap with these two disciplines, explaining social facts.
This is because certain phenomena in sociology can be distinguished from those usually investigated by the natural sciences in society. In understanding a person, for example, where the person performs his obligations as a citizen and executes the contract he made. And so on, the person has carried out his duties by applicable legal provisions. It can arise and come from external causes of the person.
However, consider it by subjectively concerned feelings. In this case, it is still an objective reality because the person is influenced by something outside himself, such as inheriting it through education. If a person violates or does not know about the law, he should consult a legal expert. Likewise, people who profess religion know, adhere to, and observe the rules of faith from birth. The authorities were already in place when he was born, so all those who exerted influence over him were external to him.
Behaviors, thoughts, and feelings regarding things outside of personal consciousness occur in every member of society—likewise, a person engaged in economic, political, professional activities, and so on. Of course, these rules have become a common problem. They never question because the person concerned also agrees or abides by the authorities. This issue also applies to understanding when someone violates the law. The person concerned is sanctioned according to applicable legal provisions.
The problems mentioned above are categories of social facts with unique characteristics that imply ways of behaving, thinking, and feeling, whose cause of appearance is outside a person and supported by forces outside himself. This way of thinking should not be confused with physical or psychological symptoms that exist only in one's consciousness. This is another variation of the phenomenon in which the term "social fact" is defined in sociology.
The discipline of sociology, which focuses on ways of thinking and behaving, understands social facts as "any way of behaving, whether fixed or not, that arises due to external pressures on the individual" or "any way of behaving common in society." A person can only live in an environment by forming specific ideas about that environment, which then govern his life.
However, since these ideas are closer to him and within his mental range than reality, a person tends to replace reality with ideas. A person manages to analyze or combine his ideas rather than observing, describing, or comparing problems that makeup reality.
If he is a writer or researcher, what he writes or researches is nothing more than ideological analysis than science that examines reality. In short, a person only looks at facts to justify his hypothesis or conclusion. In this case, his research function is only to explain the ideas or findings made. Thus, the facts process for him is only additional data to support evidence but does not become central to scientific study. Meanwhile, science comes from "problem" to "idea, and not from "idea" to "problem." Presumably, this method can only produce something objective if it is a mistake to assume that ideas are always the same as reality.
For Durkheim, social fact remains a problem and must be dealt with as it is. It is unnecessary to discuss the nature of the problem philosophically and discuss existing analogies with symptoms to prove their correctness. Suffice it to say that a sociologist will suffice with this "problem" as typical data. What exists and can be observed is the hallmark of a problem—dealing with social facts as a problem means treating it as data, which is the starting point for the development of science.
This characteristic exists in social facts, which need not be proved again. An essential feature of the problem is that simple or volitional activity cannot modify it. The problem occurs not because of its unchanging nature but because mere choice or behavior is not enough to change it. Changing it requires something continuous because there is usually exceptional resistance to the so-called objects. So concepts derived from a person or society must be adapted to the nature of the problem.
So, how should a researcher start reading social facts? According to Durkheim, the first step a researcher must take is to clear his mind of all prejudices, which are the basis of all scientific methods. Of course, this is not easy, given the difficulty of breaking away from previous thoughts or ideas. For example, a person's political or religious leanings often exert influence.
Any scientific research in the field of social sciences needs to limit the problems to be researched. Therefore, according to Durkheim, a researcher must determine what problems he wants to explore after eliminating all prejudices. According to him, this issue's limitations are necessary for proof and verification. Moreover, the theory can only be checked if it is clear what problem is being studied from social facts. For this reason, a sociologist needs to classify the problem under study starting from the existing social points and, for example, classify different types of crime.
In classifying different types of crime, a researcher should reconstruct the way of life and customs in various spheres of life of evil people. In this way, a relatively complete classification of crimes will be obtained.
In his discussion of social facts, Durkheim stated that methodologically we should build the foundations of science on solid ground and not on shifting sand. We must approach the social world where it offers the most accessible access to scientific inquiry. Only then will it be possible to encourage further research and, by continuous observation, little by little, encompass whatever reality may arise, which, although it must be realized, is that it is never possible for the human mind to understand the fact it examines?
