EXPLANATION AND ESSENCE IN THE RULES OF SOCIOLOGICAL METHOD AND THE DIVISION-OF-LABOR IN SOCIETY

In The Rules of Sociological Method, Durkheim tried to remove the ambi guity of The Division of Labor in Society that arose from his essentia list model of explanation, in which causes and effects are both necess ary and sufficient conditions of each other. The resulting confusion o f effects with causes made possible the materialist interpretation of the latter work, in which increasing population density was mistaken f or the cause rather than the sign of changes in the social environment associated with an increase in specialization. The Rules tried to def eat this misinterpretation through clarifying such key concepts as cau se, function and social environment. Durkheim's readers had failed to see that he had provided only a functional and not a causal explanatio n 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 .