Compare and contrast the theories and methods of Emile Durkheim and Max Weber

Compare and contrast the theories and methods of Emile Durkheim and Max Weber regarding social behaviour

1. Introduction

It is well known that Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) and Max Weber (1864-1920) are two of the most significant philosophers and sociologists. However, they belong to two different schools. Emile Durkheim is an extremely important French sociologist who believes p ositivism. He completed his magnum opus, “on suicide” and “the rules of sociological method”, which have a profound effect on the sociology. He used scientific method including collecting, analyzing data and discussing those date to study the society (Hynes, 1975). On the other hand, Weber believes interpretivism and he spent his entire adult life to study the society. He thought to have knowledge is to give meaning to the social world and interpret the social phenomena in some way (Stones, 2011). His famous method of studying the

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society is “ideal types” and “verstehen” (Goldman, 1993). As both of them are chief delegates in their respective areas of schools,combing their thoughts and views of the sociology will gain our knowledge of the world more fully. This paper will show the differences between their objects of their study and principles of social research methodology. In addition, this essay will illustrate their theories belong collectivism and individualism respectively and take “liberty”for example to contrast their opinions. This paper has three sections. The first two sections are to show the two men?s theories and methods. The third section will compare their theories and methods.

2. Durkheim’ positivism theory and methods

In the 1880s and 1890s, the intellectual climate was dominated by positivism and positive philosophy (Prager, 1981). Positivists advocate realism. They regard the positivism as the core of their studies and research. Realists focus on what people can be observed and what really exists in the world (Stones, 2011). During that period, positivists believed they could study the social world as the way to study natural world (Prager, 1981). Durkheim was one of the

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represents in positivism. In 1987, he completed his classical writing, “the rules of sociological method”. When he did research on this social phenomenon, he selected statistics on suicide rates. Then Durkheim analyzed these data and looked at the differences in suicide rates among countries and different categories of people. In this issue, he used scientific methods to solve the social problems.

Another one of the most famous writings of Durkheim is “on suicide”. In this publication, he thought the social structures including institutions, traditions and beliefs, patterns of behaviour existed individually in the world. In another words, these …social facts? already existed when we were born- we were born into an already existing society(Emirbayer,1996). General speaking, social facts were collective of acting, thinking, or feeling. Most of them are kind of obligation for us (Morrsion, 1990). Some people may think they can choose what to learn, how to think and how to act. However, Durkheim clamed that people just followed the patterns of the society they are living. What they want to be and how to live had been

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decided in their early lives. Our expectation has been infused by our experience of life (Hynes, 1975). People have some similar behaviors from generation to generation. At the same time, these structures also have a …coercive power? over the individual – we are coerced into following the established rules of our society (Morrsion, 1990). That is to say, the social facts have both “pull” and “push” effects on us. For example, if a man breaks the law by murder another person, he will face to arrest, trail, and imprisonment or execution. At the same time, in general, people will not break the law because the punishments forced him to dare not commit a crime.

3. Weber’s interpretive theory and methods

Weber is one of the most famous sociologists who are belonged to the interpretive tradition. Interpretivists advocate the idealism. Unlike positivists, idealists believe the natural world and social world is fundamentally different(Stones, 2011). In their views of the object in the social world, the objects of research of the social sciences including people and their institutions are fundamentally different

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from those of the natural sciences because human beings

haveself-consciousnessand reflection, and humans can reflect on themselves and their situations (Stones,2011). Weber did believe that social behavior could have causal explanations (Mcintosh, 1977). That was to say, even though the social world was so complicated and it was hard to use general and common rules to understand those diversity social behaviors, these social phenomena have their own reasons which could be interpreted. Furthermore, Weber claimed that we should understand the historical and social background before studying a social phenomenon (Goldman, 1993). For example, if anAmerican sociologist judges the social behavior and events in India by American values, the results will be hard to understand by the Indians or totally unreasonable. Instead they should seek to understand behavior according to the values of Indian culture.

Weber created a special method called “verstehen” to interpret the social behaviors. Verstehen means the interpretive understanding of social action(Goldman, 1993). To be specific, verstehen involves an

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understanding of what someone is thinking, which needs an understanding of the culture that person lives in. in Weber?s opinion, human behavior was purposeful. People always had a goal and made efforts to achieve the goal such as establishing an institution. We can find and interpret the meaning of the social phenomena though exploring its social background and essence. It is commonly believed that social scientists should establish systematized methods and solutions to do research. One of the important tools Weber used was called “ideal types”. It c ould be generally used to study the complex social behavior. It suggests that we should remove all our values, motions, opinions. Therefore ideal types create a framework of the analytical method which is similar “Utopia” (Prager, 1981). It provides different kinds of extreme “ideal” conditions. From Weber?s ideal types, we can see the difference between Weber and other sociologists. Weber focuses on the essence of the social spirit instead of the social structure. Weber tried to use ideal types to lay a logical foundation of the social science. Ideal types should be established after analyzing lots of social phenomena synthetically and

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systematically.

4. Comparison and contrast

Few comparisons have been done systematically between Durkheim and Weber before because each of the two men did not connect each other?s study directly (Tiryakian, 1966 cited inParger, 1981). Bendix (1978) also suggested that each of them had different agenda in their social works so it was hard to find out the clues to compare their opinions directly. However, both of them belongs different schools. This paper will show the comparison between their object of study and the principle of their analytical method.

4.1 The object of their study

In the Durkheim?s book, “the rules of sociological method”, he focused his object of study as social facts and social structure. He claimed that all the social behavioral patterns, no matter they were stable or unstable, once they could limit individual?s action, are called social facts. That is to say, all the people could not avoid the influence

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of the social facts even though the effects of the social facts had different effects on individuals in the complex social world. On the contrary, Weber? sociology was called understanding sociology. In his definition of the sociology, he thought that sociology was a science that tried to understand and interpret social actions; find the logical and causal relationships between different social actions. According to this definition, we could see the object of Weber?s social study was social action. Comparing with Weber?s social actions, the view of the Durkheim wasmacroscopic. According to this, it is clear that Durkheim? theory is objective. On the other hand, Weber believe d only individuals were real. The process of the social study should be to research social actions of people, understanding the meaning of social actions and interpreting causation. So Weber treated the understanding and interpreting as the most two important tasks in his social work.

4.2 The principle of social research methodology

The most basic rule in the Durkhe im?s social methodology was to

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treat the social facts as objective facts(Hynes, 1975). Durkheim emphasized that the facts are prior to thoughts. In other words, social facts existed before being defined and judged. In his ideas, sociologists should observe the essence of these social facts directly before eliminating traditional and general values. However, Weber created another method which was called ideal types to study the society. He thought the object of research had its own peculiarity and subjective intention. In his opinion, if we wanted social science to be reliable, social scientists should establish a set of accurate and precise system of the sociology as the natural science. The purpose of the ideal typeswas to increase objectivity and decrease subjective randomness. The method Ideal types was widely accepted and available to all the social schools (Mcintosh, 1977). So individual sociologist could have a common system of study to understand and analyze the society. In this way, social scientists could remove the barrier of communication and different values to develop the social science. Similarly, Durkheim had the same idea that social must get rid of all his own predictions when doing the social research. To sum

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up, both of the two men admitted that it was very difficult to dump the researchers? historical and traditional knowledge when analyz ing the society.

4.3 Collectivism and individualism

Durkheim believed social realism. He suggested the social facts existed as a collective form rather than individually (Emirbayer, 1996). Society consisted of all of the individuals but the society could not be divided into individuals(Hynes, 1975). Any one of the social phenomena was a group?s phenomena rather than individual?s psychic or mental phenomena. It was only meaningful to study individual under the premise of understanding the group where the person belonged to. On the contrary, Weber believed nominalism. In his view, the society was nothing but a name. Therefore, it was meaningful to study individuals. The process of studying society could be restored to studying the individuals (Morrsion, 1990). At the same time, not all the social actors were worth researching. That is to say, only the one who endowed his subjective values to his social actions can be Weber?s

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object of study. To investigate the society was to investigate the social actions between individuals. So to study the society was actually on an individual level. He believed only interpreting the meaning of the social actions could reveal the causality of the social phenomena.

4.4 Different views on liberty

Both Weber and Durkheim insisted on that people should be individual free and they take can part in the society individually (Morrsion, 1990). And both of them also explored the realm of the democracy. They suggested that democracy was an important role in the politics for citizens (Parger, 1981). Furthermore, it was the best way to protect individuals in the areas of society, economics and politics. Generally speaking, Weber held a pessimistic view about the liberty and the democracy. He thought democratic institution cannot replace the effluence of the social structure because the social structure had been formed in a long time. The function of democracy only could offset the hierarchical relationships between individuals. But Durkheim holded an opposite view that he believed

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moral should be a significant part in the social world. In Durkheim? opinion, democratic institution can develop individuals? liberty with diversity ways depending on the state.

Obviously, there is a sharp contrast between the Durkheim? theory and Weber?s theory. Durkheim use d the positivist approach to study this issue. Firstly, he believed democracy is a goal of the political organization. It was alsothe motivation why people can be a group who kept a common belief that everybody admits the existence of the liberty. The population could achieve this goal though persistent efforts. Secondly, democratic institution was a product of the social world when human beings establish a fair state with moral duty. In another words, he believed the government, state, population and democratic are objective social facts which exists individually in the world. Durkheim considered this argument with logical thinking. He compared the society to a“factory”(Morrsion, 1990). And individual freedom was one of the products of the “factory”. If the “factory” operated successfully and made a well-function, there would be

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“quality products”; otherwise, the “products” w ould be defective or there could be no “products”. Lastly, the individual freedom and democratic were the outcomes of the society. Liberty would be the basic social facts of the society when the authority is mature enough. On the other side, Weber gave his interpretive understanding to this argument. Unlike Durkheim, Weber compared the realm of the liberty to an “arena” (Morrsion, 1990). He denied the social facts such as liberty and democracy existed independently in the world. In his opinion, the so-called liberty was created by the government and it only existed in people?s minds. It was nothing but one of the solutions to control the citizens (Parger, 1981).

5. Conclusion

The theory of epistemology has two branches: positivism and interpretvism. Emile Durkheim and Max Weber belong these two schools respectively. Both of them made great contributions to the sociology and devote all their adult life to the social work. However, most of their views of the social science are different even opposite.

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Weber thinks the social science is similar to the natural science. He believed the existence of social facts including language, religion, law and so on. So he used natural scientific knowledge to study the social phenomena. In his classic writings, on suicide, he collected statistics on suicide rates and conclude that suicide rates are caused by social facts such as religion, employment and so on. From this writing, he gives details to prove the social facts exist. But Max Weber?s interpretivism theory denies the social facts exist in the social word. The social structures just are in human being?s mind. He created “ideal types” to study the social world. He focused on social actions. In his opinion, it is only meaningful to study social behaviours between individuals. Furthermore, the two men?s theories can be divided to collectivism and individualism. Durkheim focused on group. He claimed that the individual?s behaviourscan not prese nt the social phenomena. On the contrary, Weber believed to study the society is actually on an individual level. We should understand the society through interpreting individual?s action. Finally, this paper takes the liberty as an example to contrast both of their theories.

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However, this essay only shows limited issue in the difference of Weber and Durkheim?s social study. The essence of the two giants? theory is more than what this essay have discussed above.

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Reference:

1.Goldman, H. (1993). Contemporary sociology and the interpretation of Weber.Theory and society, 853-860.

2. Emirbayer, M. (1996). Durkheim's contribution to the sociological analysis of history.Sociological forum, 11/2, 263-284.

3. Hynes, E. (1975). Suicide and homo duplex: an interpretation of Durkheim's typology of suicide. The sociological quarterly, 16/1, 87-10

4.

4. Mcintosh, D. (1977). The objective bases of Max Weber?s ideal types. History and theory, 16/3, 265-279.

5. Morrsion. K. (1990). Social life and Eexternal regularity: a comparative analysis of the investigative methods of Durkheim and Weber. Research communications, 93-103.

6. Prager, J. (1981). Moral integration and political Inclusion: a comparison of Durkheim's and Weber's theories of democracy. Social forces, 59/4, 918-950.

7. Stones, R. (2011). Philosophy of social science. England: Palgrave macmillan.

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