The best, and really the only detailed account that Durkheim gives of his concept of social facts is in the first chapter of his 1895 book, The Rules of Sociological Method. However, despite the central importance of this concept to his entire sociological perspective (1993, 310), Durkheim's account of social facts in this chapter is oddly incomplete. While he explains in great detail exactly what he means by the term ‘social’ – and I will argue that his account of this term is exceptionally well written and could hardly be clearer – he does not do anything like such a good job of explaining what he means by the term ‘fact’ and therefore, by default, what he means by the concept of a ‘social fact’. The striking contrast between his account of these two equally important elements is then the first of many reasons I have for suggesting that Durkheim struggled to explain exactly what he understood by the concept of a ‘social fact’. Durkheim himself, if I can put it this way, seems rather to know what he means by this term himself than he is able to clearly explain this to us.

Durkheim begins his discussion of the concept of social facts in The Rules by distinguishing those facts which he says are commonly called ‘social’ from that much narrower range of facts which he says should alone properly be called ‘social facts’ (1964, 1), and he is very careful indeed to tell us why he thinks it is necessary to do this.