Talk:Social fact

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[edit] Two points for whoever wrote or revised this article

1 The second half of the first sentence makes no sense:

In positivist sociology, social facts are the social structures and cultural norms and values that are external to, of making sociology an all-encompassing discipline that contained all others—'the queen of sciences', in his terms— Durkheim was less ambitious.

2 The article ends mid sentence.

"Social facts are things that force individuals to do certain behaviors."??

Robinson Crusoe alone on his island may be forced by facts to behave in certain ways: the fact that it is an island forces him to remain there; the fact that the weather caused his hut to collapse forces him so leave it to seek shelter elsewhere, etc., but "social fact" is an inappropriate name for these facts, since he is alone. Moreover, the fact that John is married to Jane and they live under one roof and have two children appears to be a social fact regardless of whether it forces anyone to behave in any particular way. Michael Hardy 23:43, 15 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Or, if I may liberally translate what you just said, Michael, "this is nonsense". Indeed, the notion of a "social fact" is rather nonsensical, but the idea itself had an important role to play in the development of modern thought (in rather the same way that the idea of phlogiston was important to the development of modern chemistry). I hope I've made that a little clearer - though it's difficult to do that when several of the fundamental concepts are not well-known. As so often with this sort of subject, the challenge is to write in such a way that the text is both accurate and readable by the non-specialist. It's not so hard to do one or the other, both at the same time is a challenge! Tannin 14:15, 16 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Constraints, things you would have to fight against to change the world, your current status in the world based on the collective thinking of the community. Collective in this sense that if they were egalitarian, your knowledge would be golden. However in a capitalist, money talks and walks and knowledge is just something to play with.

I will admit much of this is nonsense but gives a broader view into the idea of man themselves understanding why they are in their current position, why others are in their current position, why they may belong to the others.. etc.. This is not individual based. The individual is always part of society. Man understanding why they are their current position is because of social facts that have put constraints on their freudian Id if I'm correct. Yet, I think a majority of this does relate more to the psychological aspect of sociology then anything else, which gives basis for social control. The majority would disagree with me, though. I'm thinking this is because man is plural in the sense that the collective behavior of many men would create a collective that then changes society, if well established becomes a social fact. The parts that are clearly viewed as what is current in the world and has always been something that happens in society to me, would be considered a social fact. Crime, law and order, sucidie, birth, the trading of goods.. etc. When a collection of people start gathering in these activities and they live through the times, they become a social fact. Which is different than a social current which is something the collective is trying to establish in hope that it lasts for centuries to come.--Cyberman 01:43, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

An article on the social fact would benefit by quoting and discussing Durkheim's definition of social facts from The Rules of Sociological Method; in the first chapter he provides a very succinct and lucid definition of social facts. I am away from my books for the next two weeks but will do this myself if it hasn't been done by May. Christopher Powell 02:11, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but I think the last editions of 71.198.140.166 and 65.96.192.110 made some mess in the article. I'm not too good at sociology nor at english, so I can't fix it, but if someone could take a look at it... 89.78.34.211 11:26, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

This article has a serious postmodern and interpretativist bias. Hopefully I will have some time to fix it up later, but if anyone can do anything about it in the mean time it might be nice. The very fact that it classifies a certain strand of sociology as 'positivist' should send off warning bells, as that is a typical postmodern weasel word. Countermereology (talk) 00:00, 28 December 2007 (UTC)