Sociology. Anthony Giddens
relationships between those observed phenomena. By understanding the causal relationships between events, scientists can then predict how future events will occur. A positivist approach in sociology aims to produce knowledge about society based on evidence drawn from observation, comparison and experimentation.
Comte argued that human efforts to understand the world have passed through three broad stages: the theological, the metaphysical and the positive. In the theological stage, thinking was guided by religious ideas and a belief that society was an expression of God’s will. In the metaphysical stage, society came to be seen in natural rather than supernatural terms, with events being explained by reference to natural laws. The positive stage, ushered in by the discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo and Newton, encouraged the application of scientific methods. Comte regarded sociology as the last of the sciences to develop, but he argued that it was also the most significant and complex.
In the latter part of his career, Comte was keenly aware of the state of the society in which he lived and was concerned with the inequalities produced by industrialization and the threat they posed to social cohesion. The long-term solution, in his view, was the production of moral consensus through a new ‘religion of humanity’ to hold society together despite the new patterns of inequality. Although Comte’s vision was never realized, his contribution in founding a science of society was important to the later professionalization of sociology as a legitimate academic discipline.
Emile Durkheim
Another French sociologist, Emile Durkheim (1858–1917), had a more lasting impact on sociology than Comte. Durkheim saw sociology as a new science that turned traditional philosophical questions into sociological ones demanding real-world – empirical – research studies. He argued that we must study social life with the same objectivity as scientists study the natural world, summed up in his famous injunction to ‘study social facts as things’. By this he meant that social institutions have a hard, objective reality that enables them to be analysed as rigorously as objects in the natural world.
But what is a social fact? Durkheim explains that social facts are all those institutions and rules of action which constrain or channel human behaviour. For the individual, social facts can feel rather like an external pressure, though most of the time they are simply taken for granted as ‘natural’ or ‘normal’ parts of life. For instance, the monetary system is a social fact we rarely think about. We are paid in money, we borrow money from banks to buy a car or a house, and if we have not been good at managing money we will be considered a high risk and may not be allowed to borrow. But the monetary system was already in place before we were born and, as we are forced to use it if we want to take part in our society, we are subject to its rules. In that sense, the system constrains or shapes our actions. This is typical of all social facts; they exist independently of the individual and shape their choices and actions.
In his analysis of suicide rates, Durkheim used the concept of social facts to explain why some countries have higher suicide rates than others (see the ‘Classic study’ below). Suicide seems to be a purely individual act, the outcome of extreme unhappiness or perhaps deep depression. Yet Durkheim showed that social facts such as religion, marriage, divorce and social class all exert an influence on suicide rates. And, as there are regular patterns across different countries, these patterns must be explained in a sociological not a psychological way.
Durkheim was preoccupied with the changes transforming society in his own lifetime and was particularly interested in social and moral solidarity – what it is that binds society together. Solidarity is maintained when individuals are integrated into social groups and regulated by a set of shared values and customs. In The Division of Labour in Society, Durkheim (1984 [1893]) argued that the advent of the industrial age also led to a new type of solidarity.
According to Durkheim, older cultures with a low division of labour (specialized roles such as work occupations) are characterized by mechanical solidarity. Most people are involved in similar occupations and bound together by common experiences and shared beliefs. But the development of modern industry and the enlargement of cities produced an expanding division of labour which broke down mechanical forms of solidarity. With the increasing specialization of tasks and roles, a new type of organic solidarity was created. As the division of labour expands, people become increasingly dependent upon one another, because each person needs goods and services that those in other occupations supply. Like the human ‘organic’ body, each part or organ depends on all the others if the whole society or body is to function properly.
Nonetheless, Durkheim thought that social change in the modern world was so rapid and intense that major difficulties could arise. As societies change, so do lifestyles, morals, beliefs and accepted patterns of behaviour. But, when change is rapid and continuous, the old values lose their grip on people without any new ones becoming established. Durkheim called such an unsettling condition anomie – deep feelings of aimlessness, dread and despair, as many people are left perceiving that their lives lack meaning and structure without clear guidelines for action. The big question is whether people can ever get used to continuous rapid change as the ‘normal’ condition of living in conditions of modernity.
Classic studies 1.1 Emile Durkheim’s study of suicide
The research problem
One of the more emotionally unsettling aspects of our lives is the phenomenon of suicide, which often leaves those left behind with more questions than answers. Why do some people decide to take their own lives? Where do the pressures they experience actually come from? One of the early sociological classics which explores the relationship between the individual and society is Emile Durkheim’s analysis of suicide rates, Suicide: A Study in Sociology (Durkheim 1952 [1897]). Even though people see themselves as individuals exercising free will and choice, Durkheim’s study showed that even a highly personal act such as suicide is influenced by what happens in the wider social world.
Research had been conducted on suicide before Durkheim’s study, but he was the first to insist on a sociological explanation. Previous writers had acknowledged the influence of ‘racial type’, climate or mental disorder to explain an individual’s likelihood of committing suicide. But Durkheim argued that the suicide rate – the percentage of suicides per 100,000 of the population – was a social fact that could only be explained by other social facts and that suicide rates vary widely across the world’s societies (see figure 1.1).
By examining official statistics in France, Durkheim found that certain social groups were more likely to commit suicide than others. He discovered that more men committed suicide than women, more Protestants than Catholics, the wealthy more than the poor, and single people more than those who were married. The question was, why?
Durkheim’s explanation
These findings led Durkheim to conclude that there are social forces external to the individual which influence suicide rates. He related his explanation to the idea of social solidarity and to two types of bonds within society – social integration and social regulation. Durkheim argued that people who were strongly integrated into social groups, and whose desires and aspirations were regulated by social norms, were less likely to commit suicide. From this he deduced four types of suicide, in accordance with the relative presence or absence of integration and regulation.
1 Egoistic suicides are marked by low integration and occur when an individual becomes isolated or when their ties to a social group are weakened or broken. For example, the low rates of suicide among Catholics could be explained by their strong community, while the personal and moral freedom of Protestants meant that they ‘stand alone’ before God. Marriage protects against suicide by integrating the individual into a stable social relationship, while single people remain more isolated.
2 Anomic suicide is caused by a lack of social regulation. By this, Durkheim referred to the condition of anomie, when people are rendered ‘normless’ as a result of rapid change or economic instability. The loss of a fixed point of reference