‘Social fact is to be treated as a thing.’ Discuss.

Breaking down the question

This is a direct quotation from Durkheim's The Rules of Sociological Method, and the command word "discuss" asks you to explain what he meant by it, why he insisted on it, how it works in practice, and where it has been criticised. The sentence is a methodological rule, not a metaphysical claim that social facts are literally material objects. Durkheim's point is about how the sociologist should approach social facts — with the same detachment and objectivity that the natural scientist brings to physical things — and your answer must make that distinction unmistakable from the start.

To handle the question well you must first establish what a social fact is, because the rule only makes sense once the object it governs is defined. A social fact, for Durkheim, is a way of acting, thinking or feeling that is external to the individual, exercises constraint over her, and is general throughout a society. Only then can you explain what it means to treat such a fact "as a thing" — that is, as an object with properties independent of the observer's preconceptions, to be studied from the outside through observable indicators rather than through introspection. A firm grasp of Durkheim's social facts and method and of the social fact concept itself is the foundation of a confident answer.

How to approach it

Open by placing the statement in its context — Durkheim's project of establishing sociology as an autonomous, objective science with a subject matter and method of its own. Define the social fact through its three marks of externality, constraint and generality, and give quick concrete examples such as law, morality, language and currents of opinion.

Then unpack the rule itself. Explain that to treat social facts as things means to approach them empirically and objectively, to set aside prior notions and ideological preconceptions, to study them through external observable indicators, and to explain one social fact by reference to other social facts rather than by individual psychology. Illustrate with Durkheim's own practice in Suicide, where he treated suicide rates as social facts explained by degrees of social integration and regulation.

Move to a balanced discussion. Credit the rule for founding sociology as a rigorous discipline and defending its autonomy, then set out the principal criticisms — the charge of reification, the neglect of subjective meaning pressed by the interpretive tradition, and the difficulty of full objectivity in social science. Close with an assessment that recognises the rule's enduring methodological value while acknowledging its limits.

Model answer

The statement that the social fact is to be treated as a thing is the central methodological rule of Durkheim's The Rules of Sociological Method, published in 1895, and it belongs to his larger ambition of establishing sociology as an autonomous science with its own distinctive subject matter and its own rigorous method. The rule is frequently misunderstood as the claim that social facts are literally material objects. Durkheim intended nothing of the kind. To treat social facts as things is a prescription about method — an instruction that the sociologist should approach them with the same objectivity, detachment and empirical discipline that the natural scientist brings to the study of physical phenomena.

The rule presupposes a clear definition of its object. For Durkheim a social fact is a way of acting, thinking or feeling that possesses three defining marks. It is external to the individual, existing before her birth and persisting after her death, so that she encounters it as a given part of the social world rather than as her own creation. It exercises constraint, imposing itself on the individual and sanctioning departures from it, whether through the formal penalties of law or the informal disapproval that follows a breach of custom. And it is general throughout the society, being common to the members of a group while existing independently of any particular one of them. Law, morality, religious belief, language, systems of currency and currents of collective opinion are all social facts in this sense. Crucially, such facts form a reality sui generis — a reality of their own order that emerges from the association of individuals yet cannot be reduced to individual minds.

To treat these facts as things is to draw out the methodological consequences of their externality and objectivity. First, the sociologist must approach social facts empirically, from the outside, studying them through observable and measurable indicators rather than through introspection or armchair speculation. Second, she must rid herself of preconceptions — the ideological notions, everyday prejudices and value judgements that cloud understanding — and confront the facts with an open and disciplined mind, much as the scientist sets aside common-sense impressions of the physical world. Third, since social facts are a reality of their own kind, they must be explained by other social facts and not reduced to individual psychology or biology. The cause of a social fact is to be sought in the social milieu that precedes it.

Durkheim's own study of Suicide demonstrates the rule in action. Rather than treating suicide as a purely individual and psychological act, he treated suicide rates as social facts, external and constraining, and explained their variation by reference to other social facts — the degree of social integration and moral regulation in different groups. That Protestants, the unmarried and the childless showed higher rates than Catholics, the married and parents was explained not by personal despair but by differing levels of integration into the collective life. Here the social fact of the suicide rate is studied objectively, through statistics, and explained sociologically, exactly as the rule requires.

The rule has profound merits. It gave sociology a defensible claim to be a science by insisting on an objective subject matter and a disciplined empirical method, and it defended the autonomy of the discipline against reduction to psychology or biology. By demanding that scholars set aside preconceptions, it introduced a standard of rigour and detachment that remains a cornerstone of social research. The insistence that social phenomena possess an emergent reality of their own remains a powerful corrective to crude individualism.

Yet the rule has attracted serious criticism. The most common charge is reification — that in treating social facts as things Durkheim risks endowing abstractions such as society or the collective conscience with a solidity and agency they do not possess, as though they existed apart from the individuals who compose them. The interpretive tradition, associated with Weber, objects that the rule neglects the subjective meanings that human beings attach to their actions; to treat social facts purely as external things is to miss the very quality of meaning that distinguishes social from natural phenomena, and Weber's method of verstehen was in part a response to this neglect. Critics also doubt whether the complete objectivity the rule demands is attainable in a social science, since the observer is part of the society she studies and cannot wholly escape its values. Phenomenologists further argue that social reality is continuously constructed through interaction rather than confronting individuals as a fixed external thing.

On balance, the rule should be read as a powerful and largely successful methodological injunction rather than as a literal ontology. Its demand for objectivity, empirical evidence and sociological explanation founded the discipline as a science and continues to shape research practice. Its limitation is that objectivity alone cannot capture the meaningful dimension of social life, which is why the Durkheimian and the interpretive traditions are best regarded as complementary rather than as rivals. To treat the social fact as a thing remains indispensable; to treat it as nothing but a thing is to lose sight of the meanings that make it social.

Examiner's perspective

Examiners want candidates to grasp at once that the statement is a rule of method, not a claim that social facts are material objects. The most common error is to read it literally and to argue about whether society is a physical thing, which wastes the answer. A strong script defines the social fact through externality, constraint and generality before explaining what treating it as a thing entails, because the rule is unintelligible without its object.

The discriminators in the top band are the methodological consequences drawn out precisely — empirical study through external indicators, the setting aside of preconceptions, and the explanation of social facts by other social facts — together with an apt illustration from Suicide. Equally important is a genuine discussion rather than uncritical praise. Candidates who raise the charge of reification, the interpretive objection about neglected meaning, and the problem of objectivity, and who then reach a balanced verdict, demonstrate the evaluative maturity that separates the highest marks from a competent summary. Precise vocabulary such as sui generis, collective conscience and constraint signals real command of Durkheim.