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Sociology Optional PYQ Solutions · Model answer

‘Social fact is to be treated as a thing.’ Discuss.

  • UPSC 2012
  • Sociological Thinkers

"The first and most fundamental rule is: Consider social facts as things." With this rule in The Rules of Sociological Method (1895), Émile Durkheim set out to give sociology its own object and a scientific method. Social facts are ways of acting, thinking and feeling that are external to individuals, exercise constraint over them, and…

You are reading the opening of the model answer. The full answer is part of Sociology Optional PYQ Solutions.

What the full answer covers

  • What "thing" means, and what it does not
  • Why social facts must be treated as things
  • The rules that follow
  • Indian illustration
  • Criticisms
  • Conclusion

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