SOCI 300 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Social Change, Social Fact
8 Feb 2018
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What is a social fact: sociologies study social facts. They are distinct from other facts in nature: social facts exist and they exist whether or not we are aware of it, it is through their study that the sociologist can fix society. With durkheim, it is moral reality that we must focus on: social facts exist within us and in society. There are 3 ways to describe social facts: external and independent, external to the individual and independent of the individual. He argues that social facts are ways of thinking, feeling, and acting that are external to us. When we violate social facts, they themselves onto us as punishments: we internalize them at a young age so they are unconscious, through socialization, social facts affect the ways we interact, general, social facts are collective. They are the collective beliefs, thoughts, feelings, tendencies and practices of a group (for example, feelings and sensitivities about intimidation in schools).
