Durkheim's Aphorism, the Justification Hypothesis, and the Nature of Social Facts (2006)

Abstract In The Rules of Sociological Method (1938), Emile Durkheim coined expression and asserted that objective reality of social facts was fundamental phenomenon of sociology. assertion, which has recently become known as Durkheim's (Garfinkel, 2002), has stimulated theorizing at both macrosociological level of functionalism and at microsociological level of ethnomethodology. But aphorism was also influential in early psychological research, particularly in Muzafer Sherif's autokinetic experiments on formation of social norms and Solomon Asch's experiments on conformity (Shaffer, 2005a). The differentiation of social in United States by middle of twentieth century prevented many theorists from maintaining interest in progress on either side of this divide that held promise for advancing understanding of social This article explores Gregg Henriques' recent writings on Tree of Knowledge (ToK) system (2003) that has begun to rekindle interest in integrating two social psychologies and situating social perception and action in larger context of cultural sciences. This article explores potential of one particular feature of ToK System-the Justification Hypothesis (JH)-that promises to shed light on aphorism. In The Rules of Sociological Method (1938), Emile Durkheim coined expression facts. The recent publication of an extensive collection of fragmentary writings and recordings of Harold Garfinkel (Garfinkel, 2002) on subject of ethnomethodology (EM) has unintentionally returned spotlight to concept of social facts as one of most fundamental contributions to sociological theory. Garfinkel's various materials (collected, edited and introduced by Anne Warfield Rawls) were published under controversial title Ethnomethodology's Program: Working Out Aphorism. Garfinkel uses expression Durkheim's to refer to assertion that objective reality of social facts was fundamental phenomenon of sociology. Following influential writings of Talcott Parsons' (1951), aphorism has come to be associated with school of structuralfunctionalist analysis to American sociologists in much same way that expression the whole is greater than sum of parts has come to signify school of Gestalt Psychology to American psychologists . Parsons understood social facts to be theoretical or conceptual constructions; however, recent theorists have begun to reread Durkheim as meaning to express something quite different (Hilbert, 1995; Lynch & Pevrot, 1992; Rawls, 1989, 1996; Psathas, 2003), and, in his recent book, Garfinkel claimed that EM represented most appropriate methodology for fulfilling aphorism. While there is vigorous debate as to whether or not EM captures sense of Dukheim's formulation (Craig, 2003; Psathas, 2004), sociologists have been reminded of challenge of accounting for apparent concreteness of social While virtually every introductory sociology textbook introduces social facts as a part of its formulation of contributions to discipline of sociology, it is clear that discipline as a whole has not retained study of social facts as its primary focus. There are, of course, a myriad of reasons for this neglect: later development of rival, competing schools of sociological theory, differentiation of micro-level sociological theories from more traditional macro-level perspectives, and schism between a sociological and a psychological version of social psychology (Stephan & Stephan, 1985), to name just a few. It is also true that many sociologists believed Durkheim to be fundamentally mistaken in his formulation, reading Durkheim as denying, for example, reality of process of social construction of reality. …