“Emile Durkheim” is amongst one of the important social thinker, in the field of sociology, who laid the foundation of the discipline and considered as, father of modern sociology. Initiating a new academic discipline is a challenging and difficult task. The First step in this process is to define sociology. According to “Emile Durkheim” sociology is the study of “social facts”. The logical question arises here that, what is social fact? Durkheim says that, social facts should be study as things. Those things which influence, shape and mold the behavior of individuals in a society. By things, Durkheim meant that, social things not physical things. Social facts are the social forces which are created by the people consciously themselves, like culture, norms, values and beliefs. These social forces influence the behavior, actions and lives of individuals in the society.
“Emile Durkheim” believed that, social fact is developed from the collective of individuals or group not by individual. Therefore, society should be studied in term of group and should not be reduced to the level of individual. Furthermore, he says that, if researcher want to obtain sociological knowledge by the mean of, positivist approach or scientific method, he should not study society in term of individual but it should be studied as group.
According to “Emile Durkheim”, society is composed of integration of social facts. He was interested in determining, what keeps and holds social facts together. Therefore, he developed a theory of “collective consciousness” which states that society is held together by shared beliefs, value, norms and ideas. Individuals internalize, norms and values from society and act accordingly in a society.
By Khushdil Khan Kasi
