Breaking down the question
The question focuses narrowly on the difficulties Durkheim identified in observing social facts. It is not asking for a general account of what a social fact is, though a crisp definition is needed as a foundation. The core demand is the word problems — the obstacles that stand between the observer and an objective grasp of social phenomena.
The examiner is testing whether you understand that Durkheim, despite treating social facts as things to be studied objectively, was acutely aware that they are hard to observe. Their externality and their location in the collective consciousness make them elusive, and everyday prenotions distort our perception of them.
At 10 marks, you should name the specific problems — the intangible nature of social facts, the interference of preconceptions, the difficulty of establishing indices — and show how Durkheim's methodological rules were designed to overcome them.
How to approach it
Open by recalling Durkheim's definition of a social fact as external and coercive, and his insistence that it be treated as a thing. This sets up the tension the question exploits: if social facts are things, why are they so hard to observe.
Then set out the problems as distinct points — their non-material and diffuse character, the observer's own prenotions and ideological biases, the confusion of the social fact with its individual manifestations, and the difficulty of measurement. For fuller treatment you can direct readers to our Durkheim notes and the social fact concept entry.
Conclude by noting that Durkheim's response — using external indices such as legal codes and statistics, and eradicating preconceptions — was precisely an attempt to make objective observation possible.
Model answer
For Emile Durkheim, a social fact is any way of acting, thinking or feeling that is external to the individual and endowed with a coercive power. He held that such facts are the proper object of sociology and must be treated as things, observed from the outside and explained by other social facts. Yet Durkheim recognised that observing social facts is beset by several genuine difficulties.
The first problem is that social facts are not directly perceptible in the way material objects are. A moral rule, a current of opinion or a collective sentiment has no fixed physical form; it exists diffused through the collective consciousness and manifests only imperfectly in particular acts. The observer cannot simply look at a social fact — it must be approached indirectly, through its external effects and symbols.
The second and, for Durkheim, most serious problem is the interference of prenotions. Individuals come to social phenomena already equipped with commonsense ideas, ideological convictions and everyday concepts formed by practice rather than by science. These preconceptions substitute themselves for reality and lead the observer to describe their own notions rather than the facts. Durkheim insisted that the sociologist must resolutely set aside all such prenotions, approaching social facts with the same freedom from received ideas that Descartes demanded in philosophy.
A third problem is the confusion of the social fact with its individual embodiments. Because social facts appear to us only through the conduct of particular persons, there is a constant temptation to reduce them to individual psychology. Durkheim maintained that the collective fact — the rate, the rule, the belief — is a reality of a different order, and that mistaking the part for the whole obscures its truly social character.
A fourth problem is that of definition and measurement. Since the social fact is intangible, the sociologist must fix upon external, observable indices that vary as the fact varies — legal and moral codes, statistics, rates and institutional forms. Selecting an index that genuinely corresponds to the phenomenon, and defining the group of facts to be studied by their common external characteristics rather than by preconceived ideas, is itself a demanding methodological task.
To overcome these problems, Durkheim laid down rules for the observation of social facts: eradicate all prenotions, define phenomena by their external and common characteristics before investigating them, and study social facts through stable external indices detached from their individual manifestations. These rules were his answer to the very difficulties the question raises.
In conclusion, Durkheim was clear that although social facts must be treated as things, they are not easy things to observe. Their diffuse and non-material nature, the distorting weight of preconceptions, the risk of psychological reduction and the difficulty of measurement all stand in the way — and his methodology was constructed precisely to render objective observation possible.
Examiner's perspective
The examiner wants a focused treatment of the problems of observation, not a general essay on social facts. A common weakness is to define the social fact at length and then run out of space before naming the actual difficulties Durkheim identified.
Strong answers keep the definition brief and devote the bulk of the response to distinct, well-labelled problems — the intangibility of social facts, prenotions, psychological reduction and measurement — and then show how Durkheim's rules of method were designed to overcome them. Mentioning his demand to eradicate preconceptions and to rely on external indices signals a precise command of his methodology within the 10-mark limit.