term "social fact" is used in two senses.First of all, under him understand the events that occurred in the community under certain conditions and in specific historical circumstances.These events did not depend on whether they have observed the subjects of cognitive activity.They are objective and independent of the study and interpret their research.
In a broader sense, this term is understood the events that occurred in a particular social situation, and were included in the scientific knowledge about the society, finding reflected in the books, scientific papers and other written documents.
Social facts are of two types:
- direct physical actions of people;
- products of human activity (spiritual or material), verbal actions of man: judgments, estimates, opinions, etc.
Secure social fact can be, studying statistics, conducting surveys, etc.However, using these methods can be studied only by modern researchers events.If they occurred in the distant past, for their study and description of needs analysis of historical sources, tools, dwellings, archaeological sites, written sources (chronicles, legislation, different documents, books, newspapers, etc.).In the wake of this it is possible to raise up and describe a particular social fact.
Life Society is composed of many different events.Their selection and grouping depend on the objectives pursued in the study of a specialist.Economist for the study of issues of interest to its entire set will select some events, a lawyer - other ethnographer - a completely different group of them.
social fact - is the foundation that allows to deduce the laws of development of society, to restore the past, examine the present.The interpretation of the events carried out in several stages.First of all, for them it is supplied scientific basis, that is, the fact is related with any scientific concept (for example, the overthrow of the king is bound to the concept of "political revolution").Then we study everything related to the specific circumstances of fact, traced his connection with other events that the interpretation could be objective.Only interpreted fact can be considered scientific.
Durkheim believed that social phenomena can not be reduced to individual states, they depend only on the social facts that are objective, coercive, external to the individual.They need to be considered, they exist independently of the properties and qualities of people.
According to Durkheim, the social reality is part of the universal order, it is just as real and sustainable, as the nature, therefore develops its own laws.Society - it is also an objective reality that is different from all others of its species.It has autonomy from the natural and biopsychic nature (embodied in people).Therefore, society and people act as dichotomous pair embodying the diversity of this reality.Therefore, a person is a dual nature (homo duplex), which co-exist and the social and individual components.Primacy in this belongs to the essence of the social.The conclusion is that there is a man out of society, and not vice versa (a society made up of people).
Social facts are in a society that creates them.It is the way of thinking and actions can affect the mind, forcing people to do things a certain way.
Durkheim distinguished two types of social facts: morphological and spiritual.The former have a material substrate, the latter are the beliefs, customs, and in the public consciousness.
