Positivism in Social Science: A Critical Analysis of Positivism with Reference to the Views of Emile Durkheim

Durkheim is a French sociologist who wanted to establish sociology as a new academic discipline. Instead of that, he had two other goals; to analyze how societies may possibly uphold integrity and consistency in the modern period and the practical aspects of scientific knowledge. He accepted scientific method as the valid guide for knowledge. He studied society as an examination of facts. In addition, he believed that social sciences could scientifically study when uncovered of the metaphysical generalizations and philosophical assumptions. His views can be summarized into three sub-sections; methodology of social sciences, division of labour and suicide. 

He reduced everything into facts (reductionism). It is similar with that of Wittgenstein’s views. Wittgenstein keep facts above things as things are not able to determine facts. He says, ,"1.1 The world is the totality of facts, not of things” (Wittgenstein, 1922, p. 31). 

‘Fact’ can be defined as the existence of things. But it should be proved with using evidences. In the introduction which was written by Bertrand Russell to Tractatus Logico philosophicus, has mentioned that,

“The world consists of facts; facts cannot strictly speaking be defined, but we can explain what we mean by saying that facts are what make propositions true, or false. Facts may contain parts which are facts or may contain no such parts” (Wittgenstein, 1922, p. 11-12).

Russell’s view is bit similar with that of Wittgensteins. In return, both Russell and Wittgenstein have similar views as Durkheim. Durkheim thought that the society can be reduced to facts because values can be studied quantitatively. However, this idea was challenged by other intellectuals. 

He emphasized more on the ‘whole’ rather than the ‘part’. In other words, he emphasized more on ‘collectivism’ rather than ‘individualism’. It can be summarized as following. 

Whole                  Part

  =                          =

Ocean.               A drop of water

   =                         =

Society            Individuals

(Collectivism)

According to him, it is possible to get more knowledge by studying the society as a whole instead of studying individuals separately. It is considered as sociological realism. 

When it comes to his theory of labour, it was identified with the industrialization.  He emphasized two types of ‘solidarities’. 

-Mechanical solidarity

-Organic solidarity 

Mechanical solidarity can be seen in the primitive societies where there was a simple division of labor. Every human being (worker) had equal rights and treated as equal. Therefore, they had ‘collective consciousness. Organic solidarity can be seen in advanced / complex societies where there is inequality among employees. Their functioning is similar to the functioning of the organs in the body. Although there are separate organs in the body, their functioning is essential to the correct functioning of the body. As such, the functioning of the people who work in different areas (teachers, doctors, farmers, manual workers etc.) is essential for the right functioning of the society. 

His book Suicide that was written in 1897 can be considered as one of his masterpieces. He defines suicide as the action that performs by knowing the positive and negative consequences. He introduced suicide in four types (Figure 1).

-Altruistic suicide

-Anomic suicide

-Egoistic suicide 

-Fatalistic suicide

Durkheim has taken ‘suicide’ as a fact (social fact). He explored the suicide rates among different social groups and his findings were analyzed according to those rates. 

However, Durkheim was criticized for his overemphasis on the idea of ‘fact’ and for reducing everything into facts (even values). The position that he gave to the individuals and their role in the society was also criticized because he emphasized more on collectivism. To illustrate, the spider is the one who creates the cobweb. Therefore, it is impossible to ignore the role of the spider. As such, it is impossible to ignore the role of the individual when forming the society because the society is constructed by the individuals. 

He was criticized for the reduction of live values into relatively dead social facts. He analyzed suicide with statistics. But it is questionable whether suicide is a fact. Although the number of people who committed suicide has taken as a fact the reason for the question of why people commit suicide is a qualitative one. And also his approach lacks the information outside of France. 

References 

Abraham, F., & Morgan, H. J. (1985). Sociological Thought from Comte to Sorokin. Madras: Macmillan India Limited .

Wittgenstein, L. (1922). Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, trubner & Co. Ltd.