Explanation and Essence in The Rules of Sociological Method and The Division of Labor in Society

Abstract

In The Rules of Sociological Method, Durkheim tried to remove the ambiguity of The Division of Labor in Society that arose from his essentialist model of explanation, in which causes and effects are both necessary and sufficient conditions of each other. The resulting confusion of effects with causes made possible the materialist interpretation of the latter work, in which increasing population density was mistaken for the cause rather than the sign of changes in the social environment associated with an increase in specialization. The Rules tried to defeat this misinterpretation through clarifying such key concepts as cause, function, and social environment Durkheim's readers had failed to see that he had provided only a functional and not a causal explanation of the division of labor, which he took to be an adaptation to, not a result of, factors in the social rather than the physical environment.