"Durkheim conceived of sociology as the scientific study of a reality sui generis, a clearly defined group of phenomena different from those studied by all other sciences, biology and psychology included." The term "social fact" used often by Durkheim means "a category of facts which present very special characteristics: they consist of manners of acting, thinking, and feeling external to the individual, which are invested with a coercive power by virtue of which they exercise …showed first 75 words of 2188 total…

…showed last 75 words of 2188 total…as subjective. I must concur with his critiques on the subject that speak quite convincingly of this weakness. In conclusion, Durkheim's inability to provide us with objective "social facts" fundamentally undermines his ability to 'explain one social fact by another' because no primary objective social facts exist to be analyzed. Instead Durkheim's work should be seen as providing one reasonable valid idea of society that is useful for the formulation of other "reasonably valid" ideas.