24I

Discovery and Explanation in Sociology:Durkheim on Suicide*TOBY E. HUFF

At least since the publication of Karl Poppers The Logic of Scientific Dis-covery (1959), readers attentive to contemporary currents in the philosophyof science have been reminded that the logic of discovery in science is notcontained within the logic of induction. And similarly, the work of Hanson(1958, 1961, 1963), Kuhn (1970) and others has reinforced this lesson whichhad been taught long ago by Peirce (1931-35), as well as by Kant.However, it should be noted that despite the title of Poppers book, he was

reluctant to pursue the question of whether or not there might actually be alogic of discovery which stood in relation to scientific innovation as deductionstands to the process or testing scientific theories. For when Popper wroteThe Logic of Scientific Discovery (in the early ig3os) he was apparently of theopinion that the question of how it happenedthat a new idea occurs to a man-whether it is a musical theme, a dramatic conflictor a scientific theory-may be of great interest to empirical psychology; but it isirrelevant to the logical analysis of scientific knowledge [1959, p. 31].

It was N. R. Hanson who attempted to clarify the problem by pointing outthat the issue is not theory-using but theory-finding; my concern is not withthe testing of hypotheses, but with their discovery (1958, p. 3). Moreover,Hanson argued against the position given expression by Popper. He assertedthat in order to consider the problem of theory-finding,there must be an appreciation of the logical distinction between (1) reasons foraccepting an hypothesis H, and (2) reasons for suggesting H in the first place, (i)is pertinent to what makes us say H is true, (2) is pertinent to what makes us say His plausible. Both are the province of logical inquiry, although H-D [hypothetico-deductive] theories discuss only (i) saying that (2) is a matter for psychology orsociology-not logic. This is just an error [Hanson, 1958, p. 200 n. 2].

In such a manner Hanson took up again the case that C. S. Peirce had longbefore laid out. It was that the logic of theory-finding, or theoretical inno-vation is abductive (or retroductive) but not inductive. Abduction,

Received 7.g.74f An earlier draft, appearing under the title Social Facts, Theoretical Constructs and Social

Explanation: A Preliminary Case Study was presented to the Charter Meeting of the Circle forthe Study of Comparative, Historical and Systematic Sociology at the New School for SocialResearch, New York, April 13 1973.

242

Peirce wrote, is the process of forming an explanatory hypothesis. It is theonly logical operation which introduces any new idea; for induction doesnothing but determine a value, and deduction merely evolves the necessaryconsequences of a pure hypothcsis ... and if we are ever to learn anythingor to understand phenomena at all, it must be by abduction that it is broughtabout (Peirce, zg3~, 5.171).

In sociology Emile Durkheims study, Suicide ([1897] 1951), affords us anexceptional opportunity for exploring these questions central to the logic ofdiscovery. Although Suicide has been subjected to all manner and form ofcriticism, sociologists continue to view Suicide primarily as a remarkablyearly use of statistical analysis to test a set of theories (Riley, 1963, p. 413; >who follows Selvin, 1958, and 1956; italics mine), rather than as a brilliantcase of theoretical innovation which illustrates the logic of discovery. Thetwo views are compatible, of course, but the former view neglects importanthistorical and philosophical truths. For if Suicide is a work which providesa rrem and forceful explanation of the phenomena of suicide, then there musthave been a (iiqcovery of something new by Durkheim. Durkheim must havediscovered what others before him had failed to see.

Moreover, if Peirce, Hanson and Popper are good guides to advance inscience, Durkheims innovative success must have been abductive, notinductive; it must have been a bold conjecture, not a recording of newsensory reports, an induction by enumeration. And thus the secret ofDurkheims innovation could not have been the remarkably early use ofmultivariate analysis And yet Durkheims most recent and importantbiographer has attempted to maintain this view. Steven Lukes (1972) openshis analysis of Durkheims work on suicide with an appropriate consideration:a review of the facts at hand, The Explanandum. He proceeds with adiscussion of The Rejected Explanations, and then concludes with asection on the Explanation Offered. But what is surprising is that this lastsection shifts attention from issues pertinent to the logic of discovery, fromissues pertinent to why Durkheim thought a particular hypothesis wasplausible, to issues in the logic of proof. One is led to believe that the essenceof Durkheims explanatory theory issued from the multivariate operationof specification which mysteriously yields Durkheims interrelated types ofsuicide (Lukes, 1972, pp. 205-6). There is no suggestion in the discussionby Lukes that Durkheim was offering an abductively created new con-ceptual mapping of the data on suicide, that it was a conjecture about theexistence of states of society which could not be directly measured whichwas being proposed as an explanation.Both Lukes (1972, pp. 199 ff.) and Douglas (1967, pp. 32-3) detect a

reverse order in Durkheims procedure, but they see it neither as typical

243of science nor illustrative of abductive inference. Lukes sees unfortunateconsequences in a theory that was both restrictive and misleading (1972,p. 202). Consequently, for Lukes, Durkheims theory would have beenlegitimate only if it was true and exhaustive of the explanada. _But such conditions are rarely met in science when a whole array of

anomalous facts must be accounted for, as for example in astronomy. EvenNewtons celebrated work could not accomplish that: there were both dataleft unexplained and limiting conditions, which, in the light of Einsteinswork, make part of Newtons theory wrong. And Newtons theory, nomatter whether true or false, was certainly not the only possible system ofcelestial mechanics that could explain the phenomena in a simple and con-vincing way (Popper, i968, p. i9i; italics in original. And for an historicalreview of the utility of hypotheses, see Duhem, 1968). In short, Lukesscriticisms seem misplaced.On the other hand, Douglas claims that Durkheims procedure was an

explicit rejection of the usual approach of science to the development andtesting of theories (1967, p. 25). He does not recognize what Popper hascalled the legitimate operation of explaining the known by the unknown(1968, p. 63), but concludes that Durkheims thought is out of line withtwentieth-century scientific thought (p. 75). In sum, even the most recentcriticism and analysis of Durkheims work on suicide fails to examine it fromthe point of view of the most recent, even the most significant work in thephilosophy of science of the last fifteen years.As a case study of theoretical innovation in the history of sociology we are

fortunate in having available two highly illuminating sources of informationregarding (a) the state of Durkheims early thinking about explanations ofsuicide, and (b) an extremely compact statement of the actual factual con-sensus about rates of suicide which all late nineteenth-century students ofsuicide had available to them. The first of these is Durkheims study,Suicide et natalite: etude de statistique morale (1888). This was Durkheimsfirst attempt to explain the variations in rates of suicide nearly 10 years beforehis classic solution appeared. The second source is Henry Morsellis study,Suicide : An Essay in Comparative Moral Statistics (1882), which was firstpublished in Italian in 1879 and which was well known to Durkheim in thatedition.

Let us then review this conceptual and factual background as a methodo-logical device for uncovering the nature of Durkheims intellectual inno-vation.

244

Rates of Suicide : the Nineteenth-century FactsIt is not now a great novelty to point out that all the crucial variations in ratesof suicide were known long before Durkheim published his classic study.Studies of the last decade have made that point forcefully. Douglas (1967,p. 16) noted the work of the moral statisticians who had already publishedhundreds of works on suicide well before Durkheims work appeared.Anthony Giddens (1965) two years earlicr detailed the sources of data unrates of suicide on which Durkheim relied. And before that John ~1adge(1962) argued that Durkheim based almost all of his analysis on materialthat had already been published, and that there was only one point at whichhe found the published material insufficient (p. 17; see Durkheim, 195 I,pp. 175 ff.).Thus with this one exception mentioned by 11-Iadge-prcsumably the

differential rate for single, married and divorced persons according to age,as well as male and fcmale differences among the married3-Durkhcimsstudy was an effort to reorganize and explain the data in a more satisfactorymanner.

A compendium oi till the exact findings on variations in rates of suicidefor all Europe which existed in the year i88o would&dquo;be much too tedious topublish here. But a brief recounting of the most crucial findings whichappear prominently in Durkhcims study can be culled from the influentialwork of Henrv Morselli,, Silicide: tln Essiiy in Comparative VIorl Statistics.Such a recounting should serve to illustrate that Durkheim hegcrra with a setof prOble11llfic ilitti and then sought to find an explanation of them.

Consider thcse regularities as reported by llMorselli :(i) Suicide was shown to be a concomitant of advancing civilization,

and both llorselli ( T BSz, pp. 16 and 118-19) first, and Durkheim later,agreed that the voluntary deaths of primitive peoples are no more suicides,in the common sense of the word, than the death of a soldier or a doctorexposing himself knowingly because of duty (Durkheim, [1893], 1933, p.246).

(2) [While] there are other influences [on suicide rates] such as climate,the seasons [and] atmospheric changes (Morselli, 1882, p. 36) the greatestpart of this particular tendency [to suicide] is due to race, religion, andculture. Thus (3) Morselli declared, the very high average of suicides amongProtestants is another fact too general to escape being attributed to theinfluence of religion (1882, p. 125). A comparison of the results of otherresearchers such as Morselli made (that is, a review of the work of ivagner,Oettingen and Lego~-t) clearly shows the most frequent order in which thevarious religions follow each other is this: Protstllllts, Catholics, and Jews,

245and next in frequency come Protestants, Jews clnd Catholics (1882, p. 123;italics in original).

(4) Morselli understood that economic changes and occupational positionsaffected the suicide rate. To this end he wrote:

Agriculture, commerce, and trade are, like education expressions of the degree ofcivilization of a people, and Petit, when studying their influences on suicide,observed that the French departments with the greatest economical development,are also most afflicted with voluntary deaths. [Furthermore] the years of agriculturaldistress and misery and of financial crises constantly raise the proportion of mentaldiseases, and all that causes retrogression in a State or in a ciass of men, is a causeof suicide [1882, p. i5~].

(5) Beyond that, Morselli pointed out that political integration-a clearanticipation of Durkheims thesis of social integration-was an evidentdepressant of the suicide rate. When the powers of the state reach theirpeak of pervasiveness, individualism is diminished and so also are suicides.And the converse rule applies. The effect of political integration on rates ofsuicide, Morselli established, can be seen in the evident diminution ofviolent deaths during periods of revolution and war (1882, p. i5g).4

(6) It was evident from the first attempt at comparative statistics [Morselli,afhrms] that suicide is much more frequent amongst men than -omen ...In every country the proportion is I woman to 3 or men, as in crime it isalso I to 4 or 5 (1882, p. 189).

(7) Studies of rural-urban differences allowed Vlorselli to formulate thefollowing generalization:The proportion of suicides in all Europe is greater amongst tlte c-oiideiiseti populatiollsor urball ceutres tiiaii amongst the ntore scattered in/abitants of the country [r882, p.i6g; italics in original].

(8) All the statistics for Europe revealed that the military had the highestrate of suicide of any population, and in Italy the ratio of military to civiliansuicides approached the level of I to i (Morselli, 1882, pp. 256-7)

(9) Morselli was aware that being married and having children were bothconditions that lowered the rates of suicide. However, Morselli detected adifferential influence due to the presence of children: the presence of childrenis a stronger check for the mother than for the fatlzer in married life andwidowhood, whilst it is the contrary in the state of divorce (p. 238; italicsin original). At the same time, Morselli was aware that rates of suicideincrease with age, and that accordingly the peak was reached at aboutmiddle age (that is, ages 45-55; 1882, p. 206).And finally, Morselli saw the differential effects of education on the suicide

rate, being higher among the more educated and the more cultured (pp.130-1; also p. 125).

246In sum, we have a veritable mass of facts on suicide all of which existed

18 years before Durkheim formulated his theoretical solution. The questionwhich naturally was paramount, then as now, is, How are we to explain thesediverse fluctuations in rates of suicide, fluctuations which manifest themselveseven by the hour of the day, the day of the week, and the month of the year(Morselli, 1882, pp. 36-80) ?

Suicide and the Survival of the Fittest : a First ApproximationHere is Morsellis explanation. For him all these variations by social factorsreduce themselves to one overriding factor: To those who admit the primarycause of progress and evil, he wrote, to be in the struggle of man withnature and with himself, suicide shows itself what it really is; a socialphenomenon, inevitable and necessary in the progress of civilization (1882,p. I 18). In the final analysis, to Morselli:All the differences of race, of nationality, of religion, and culture, would be in-comprehensible if suicide were not looked upon as the consequence of a continualstruggle between peoples and individuals, whilst other general influences, parti-cularly climate, seasons, and annual temperature, show man struggling with natureand represent another side of human evolution [1882, p. 364].

Suicide is then to be explained as an outcome of mans struggle forsurvival: Suicide is an effect of the struggle for existence and of human selection,which works according to the laws of evolution among civilized people (Morselli,1882, p. 354 italics in original).The inadequacies of Morsellis explanation, and of biological explanations

of social behaviour in general, are too well known to recount here. The mosttelling critique of Morsellis theory is the fact that the military, a group de-clared by Morselli to be physically and intellectually superior to the civilianpopulation, has the highest instead of the lowest rate of suicide.

Nevertheless, given that criticism of Morsellis theory, we are still leftwith the original question: namely, what would be a better explanation ofthe variations in rates of suicide Let us consider Durkheims answer.

Explaining Social Facts : the First AttemptThe foregoing discussion provides a reasonably workable account of thedata on suicide, and Morsellis explanation of it, which existed several yearsbefore Durkheim began his journey in explanation. The existence of thisdata compiled by Morselli and its widespread influence does not permit oneto draw the conclusion that Durkheims explanation. of suicide was a pre-conceived theory which was developed before he had conducted a carefulconsideration of the data (Douglas, 1967, p. 25).

247

First of all, as we have seen, all the bctsic facts on the variations in rates ofsuicide were known before Durkheims classic study appeared. Moreover, itmay be that Morsellis study has a richer factual content than Durkheims.

Secondly, it is clear beyond a doubt that Durkheim was familiar with allthe important data on suicide long before his magnum opus appeared. Forin 1888 Durkheim published a study under the title Suicide et natality inwhich he referred to Morsellis study. Indeed, it seems likely that Morselliswork was one reason for Durkheims 1888 study. For Niorselli (1882, p. 34)claimed that the birthrate was one of the few social factors which could notbe related to the suicide rate.

_

Thus, in his 1888 study Durkheims approach centres upon demographicfactors. He attempted to prove that the rates of suicide vary with the birth-rate. And he found a remarkable covariation of these two factors which hereferred to as a law.5 This law asserted that the suicide rate increases bothin times of high births and in periods of low births. And such was Durkheimslaw of suicide of 1888: a demographic explanation which is far removedfrom the theory of social integration. But given the facts decisively em-phasized by Morselli, (a) the higher rate of suicides for Protestants than forCatholics throughout Europe (1882, p. 123), (b) the fluctuation of thesuicide rate inversely with the degree of political integration (p. 152), (c)the less unequivocal findings that single persons have higher rates than themarried (p. 228), and that the presence of children is a stronger check[against suicide] for the mother than for the father in married life andwidowhood (p. a38; italics in original we should have expected Durkheimto propose his integration theory of i 8g~ : that is, thatSuicide varies inversely mitla the degree of integration of religious society. Suicidevaries inversely with the degree of integration of domestic society. Suicide variesinversely with tlae degree of integration of political society [Durkheim [1897], 195I,p. 208, italics in original].But in fact, Durkheim made no such claim in 1888, despite his undeniable

knowledge of Morsellis work.Similarly, Morselli pointed out that there is a very high rate of suicide

among the commercial and industrial occupations; or more precisely, TheFrench Departments with the greatest economical development were theones with the highest rate of suicide (1882, p. 152). The swings of theeconomy and their resultant states of maladjustment became protot-vpicexamples of Durkheims conception of anomie : but in Durkheims expla-nation of suicide in 1888 there is no mention of anomie.

Instead we find an equally ingenious explanation of the differential ratesof suicide among the occupations: As we see [he wrote] there are few suicidesamong farmers, few among industrialists, more among business people; and

248the liberal professions furnish an enormous contingent (1888, p. 459).These effects Durkheim argued, are a product of the birthrate. In a word,the professions where people kill themselves the most are those where thereare the least number of births, and conversely (p. 45g). In short, Durkheimmanaged to fashion an explanation of the fluctuations in the rates of suicidewithout the concepts of egotism, altruism and anomie : 7The first conclusion which arises from the preceding is that the birthrate, when itis too low, is a pathological phenomenon .... [Yet] it seems to be the case, on thecontrary, that the birthrate, when it exceeds a too-elevated level, becomes anew,and. for another reason, a cause of suicides. In a society where the populationreproduces itself too quickly, the struggle for life becomes more intense andindividuals renounce more easily an existence which has become too difficult [1888,p. 460].

It was these fluctuations in the birthrate which caused the variations inthe rates of suicide. Furthermore, these disruptions of the normal birthratewere seen as indicative of social malaise, of an organism in dis-equilibrium(p. 461), an idea borrowed from Bertillon. But Durkheim was not able at thispoint in time to go beyond this diagnosis and to fashion a more far-reachingexplanation. There is no claim that the problem lies in defective socialintegration and defective social regulation.Even five years later, in The Division of Labour in Society ([1893], 1933)

Durkheim had made no significant advance (see Durkheim i933~ pp. 246-5I~353~73)~ He now states clearly that in the study of suicide we are before aphenomenon which is linked not to some local and particular circumstancesbut to a general state of the social milieu. This state is diversely refractedby special milieux (provinces, occupations, religious confessions, etc.)(p. 249). Still Durkheim makes no claim that these larger social forces maybe described as egoism, altruism or anomie.But it is not really surprising that Durkheims explanation of suicide in

1888 (as w ell as in 1893) is radically different from that of 1897. For Durk-heim has written that the real turning point in his intellectual developmentwas in the years 1894-5. This was the period when he first delved into thestudy of religion. This encounter was so influential that Durkheim believedthat his whole intellectual outlook had been changed. That course of 1895[on religion] marked the dividing line in the development of my thought, tosuch an extent that all my previous researches had to be taken up afresh inorder to be made to harmonize (Durkheim, cited in Lukes, 1972, p. 237).Moreover, anyone who reads the Rules of the Sociological Method and com-pares its description of the nature of sociological explanation with the actualcase of explanation forged in Suicide will recognize that Durkheims under-standing of the whole enterprise is markedly more advanced in the latter

249work. It goes beyond the explanatory principles first enunciated in theDivision of Labour in Society which specified only two crucial variables ofthe social milieu: (i) the number of social units or, as we have called it,the &dquo;size of a society&dquo;; and (2) the degree of concentration of the group, orwhat we have termed the &dquo;dynamic density&dquo; (Durkheim, 1938, p. 113).

In short, the primal theoretical innovation of linking the ideas of egoismand anomie to the social production of suicides had yet to be carried out. Inall, Durkheim had to struggle with the data for nine years after his firstattempt to explain them. And thus his final solution was a product of thesociological imagination. It formulated a new conceptual mapping of factslong lacking the kind of organization that the scientific mind requires. Withthe material at hand we cannot piece together all the details of Durkheimsintellectual journey. But here is the logical structure of what he did.

Explainilig Rates of Suicide : Retrodtictive InferenceIn Book 2, Chapter II of Suicide Durkheim tells us that it is not possible togo about observing, recording and classifying types of suicides and suicidalpersons. Nor would classifying them according to motives be a soundprocedure. One must instead reverse the order of study (1951, p. i:I6).That is,only insofar as the effective causes [of suicides] differ can there be different typesof suicides. [Therefore] we will seek first the social conditions responsible for them,then group these conditions in a number of separate classes by their resemblancesand differences and we shall be sure that a specific type of suicide will correspondto each of these classes [p. i~7].Now it should be obvious that it is precisely the discovery of a new set of

social conditions which caaese suicides which is at issue. And Durkheimcertainly does not maintain that this discovery was brought about by theobservation of a new set of data. Even the new data which he does introduceand which he procured from the Ministry of Justice is only a more adequateanalysis of the interactions between age, sex and marital status which otherresearchers had suggested (see Durkheim, i95i, pp. 172-7). -

His discovery was instead a product of reorganizing the data already athand. In trying to unravel this abductive leap in Durkheims thinking onefinds Durkheim collapsing (or confusing) abductive and deductive inferences.But since it was the American philosopher Peirce who did the most toclarify these modes of logical inference, it is not surprising that Durkheimconfuses them. ,On the one hand, Durkheim did realize that his procedure necessitated the

assumption, that is the conjecturing, of the existence of entities that are not

250

actually known to exist. That this procedure has its defects he recognized:The defect of this method, of course, is to assume the diversity of types with-out being able to identify them. It may prove their existence and numberbut not their special characteristics (1951, p. 147; italics mine). But ofcourse, abductive inferences prove nothing.On the other hand, Durkheims conception of the scientific method re-

quired him to begin with an established premiss, the organizing principle,which would allow him deductively to specify the typological variations.But that was impossible since his organizing principles were those conjecturalcategories of egoism, altruism and anomie (and fatalism). These could notbe observed and measured, and furthermore, the only justification forintroducing them in the first place was the hoped-for demonstration that theknown facts of rates of suicide could be arranged in a fashion consistent with abelief in them. In other words, one could introduce the ideas of egoism,altruism and anomie because the facts, viewed in the proper manner,suggested that such conditions do exist. That is a retroductive inference ofthe first order.The fact that the idea of egoism existed in the French literature of the

nineteenth century is of course important (see Douglas, 1967, pp. 16-20).It appears to represent a genuine anticipation (see Merton, 1968, pp. 13 if.)of Durkheims conception. But even in the work of Morselli, who seems tohave been most influential on Durkheims explanation of suicide, the idea ofegoism is very different semantically from Durkheims conception.

Furthermore, the conceptual categories of altruism and anomie are absentfrom the work of Morselli as well as Durkheims early studies. And evenwhen Durkheim first introduced the sociological concept of anomie (inthe Division of Labour in Society, 1933, PP. 353-73), he made no connectionbetween anomie and rates of suicide. In short, even granting the existenceof a vague idea of egoism, it was quite another matter to link it, while in-venting the other categories, to social processes productive of suicides.Now if it had been accepted as legitimate scientific procedure to openly

state that one was offering a new set of explanatory concepts to account forpre-existing data-that is, explaining the known by the unknown-thenDurkheim could have simply said that was what he was doing. But of coursefinished scientific reports rarely reveal the actual course of progress anddiscovery.

Still, Durkheim was aware of the speculative nature of his innovation andits basic assumptions. And while Durkheim was compelled to describe hisprocedure as deductive, the hypothetical and abductive nature of hisinference still stands out. Despite the presumptive and therefore defectivenature of assuming the diversity of types, that is, the causes,

25Ithis drawback may be obviated, at leastin a certain measure. Once the nature of thecauses is known we shall try to deduce the nature of the effects, since they will beboth qualified and classified by their attachment to their respective sources. Ofcourse, if this deduction [abduction] were not at all guided by the facts, it might belost in purely imaginary constructions. But with the aid of some data on themorphology of suicides, it may be made clearer. Alone, these data are too incompleteand unsure to provide a principle of classification; but once the outlines of thisclassification are found, the data may be used. They will indicate what directionthe deduction should take and, by the examples they offer, the deductively [abduc-tively] established species may be shown not to be imaginary [Durkheim, i g5 r,p. i4~; italics mine].

In effect, Durkheim was postulating imaginary conceptual categories,which if found to exist-i.e. corroborated-would explain the variations inrates of suicide as a matter of course. The categories of egoism, altruismand anomie are of course theoretical ideas, creations of reasoning, notsense-data. They were not observed and measured in the first instance inany of the usual sensationalist or empiricist connotations of those operations.And sociologists today are not of one mind as to whether these conditionsdo or do not exist and can or cannot be measured (see Gordon, 1967, 1968;Lander, 1967; W. Martin, 1968, among others).

Moreover, it may be pointed out that this innovation by Durkheim was nota simple matter of definition as sometimes implied. As aetiological categories,Durkheims types of suicide are also construed as developmental products ofspecial social circumstance. Consequently they identify social processes aswell. And hence they were not arbitrary, but were chosen for their semanticcontent and their fit with the existing data.These issues are frequently pushed aside. Thus in his analysis of Suicide,

John Madge recognized the direction of Durkheims progress but impliesthat the issue was arbitrarily resolved by definition. Given the impossibilityof classifying types of suicide on the basis of motives, Madge interpretsDurkheims dilemma as one which could be resolved by setting up a broadclassification of social causes of suicide, which can be done on the basis ofexisting information, and then to take a series of suicides and try to fit eachinto one or another category of social causes (Madge, 1962, p. 31).

But this way of putting the matter misses the crucial issues. The causesof suicide are not simply definitional, and it is not simply a matter of Durk-heims making a distinction. It is rather the difference between saying, e.g.that Prior to the night of 2 August 1932, the fundamental building-stones ofthe physical world had been universally supposed to be simply protons andnegative-electrons (Millikan, cited in Hanson, 1963, p. 152) and saying thatthe fundamental building-blocks of the universe are three: proton, electronand positron. Those are not simple matters of definition.

252

Furthermore, before Durkheim could establish a new set of classihcatorydivisions he had to invent organizing principles. That invention was anabductive inference and the crucial innovation of his theoretical advance inthe explanation of suicide. These principles, that is, the ideas of egoism,altruism and anomie, also displayed the virtues of greater parsimony andexplanatory power. In the former case they reduced a heterogeneity of typesof suicide to a much smaller number. And in the latter case, they illustratesthe function of explanation in the Peircean sense: to supply a proposition[or propositions] which, if it had been known to be true before the phenomenapresented itself, would have rendered that phenomena predictable (Peirce,1935, 7.192).Thus Durkheims argument takes the form, Let us imagine the existence

of three (or four) states of the social body characterized by (~a) too muchindividualism, (b) too little individualism, (c) too much regulation and (d)too little regulation. If we do, then we have specified the social conditionswhich the various types of suicide reflect. Moreover,, as these social conditionsvary from time to time and in one place or another, so does one find therates of suicide fluctuating.

Insofar as logical form is concerned, Durkheims innovative inferencebegan with unexplained, perhaps surprising, phenomena, He proceededabductively :Some surprising phenomena P are observed.P would be explicable as a matter of course if H were true.Hence there is reason to think that H is true. [See Hanson, 1958, p. 82.]

In short, Durkheims real discovery was neither a new array of the rawfacts, nor the use of the technique of multivariate analysis. It was ratherthe discovery, through a brilliant act of sociological retroduction, of a newset of organizing principles which gave a new and more forceful explanationto a host of facts already at hand. It took the form of prov iding a moreintellectually compelling theoretical connection between social states andrates of suicide. Forced into a defensive position, one can easily imagineDurkheim offering a defence like that set forth by Darwin:I believe in Natural Selection not because I can prove that it has changed onespecies into another, but because it groups and explains well (as it seems to me)a host of facts in classification, embryology, morphology, rudimentary organs,geological succession and distribution [cited in Parsons, Shils, Naegele, and Pitts,ig6i, p. xxi].

In a similar manner Durkheim used the data available on rates of suicideas a touchstone to begin an abductive leap to a new conceptual insight. Hisefforts in Suicide designed to prove that his novel conjectures were not

253

imaginary have in the past diverted attention to the logic of proof. ButDurkheims real originality was in the imaginative conceptual conjecturewhich gave him some ideas to test. That is why it should be treated as acase study in the logic of discovery.

Pi7tteriis of Discovery ill ScienceThose who retain a view of science as an enterprise which advances primarilyand most legitimately through the use of induction, aided by deduction andbased on rigorously observed and measured sensations (see ivallace, 1971, pp.i8 and a~-g), will doubtless feel discomfort with this account of Durkheimspioneering theoretical advance. Those who view science as advancing on thebasis of the piling up of one solid brick of knowledge upon another will wanteither to reject this account or relegate Durkheim to the category of un-scientific v isionary. Such an effort will never do if we are to remain faithfulto the history of scientific advance. The fashioning of conceptual maps whichbegins with speculative formulations is not only necessary but part and parcelof scientific revolutions.

Consider in this connection the following insights unveiled for us by thelate N. R. Hanson on the nature of elementary particle physics:If microphysical explanation is even to begin, it must presuppose theoreticalentities endowed with just such a delicate and nonclassical cluster of properties[as would explain the phenomena in question]. In general if A, B, and C, can beexplained only by assuming some other phenomena to have properties a, /3, and y,then this is a good reason for taking this phenomenon to possess a, and y,[I9>>> 1P~ 123-4].Thus earlier in this century the idea of a neutrino was postulated:

rhe existence of the neutrino has been suggested ... as an alternative to theapparent lack of conservation of energy in beta disintegrations. The neutrino isneutral. Its mass appears to be either zero or extremely small .... Its spin isbelieved to be

~; its magnetic moment either zero or very small [Fermi, cited byHanson, 1958, p. 124].

But why accept this conjecture, this guess? a ~~hy accept this concept[of the neutrino] ? physicists asked.It cannot be observed in the Wilson chamber, nor has it ever been directly detectedby other means. Besides such a particle seems unlikely and unsettling. So why acceptthe neutrino? [Hanson, 1958, p. 125; italics in original.]

If this imaginary particle could not be seen, and its existence appeared todefy physical common sense, why should physicists grant its existence ?The answer was,

254Because if you do, the continuous f3-ray spectrum will be explained as a matter ofcourse, and the energy principle will remain intact. What could be better reasons ?[Cited by Hanson, 1958, p. 125; italics in original.]8From this we see that what appears to be an outlandish speculation on

Durkheims part is a retroductive inference with remarkably parallel counter-parts in modern physics. To borrow Hansons formulation, if certain fluc-tuations in the phenomena of the social world can be explained only byasstiming the existence of social conditions a, f3 and y, then that is goodreason for believing that they exist. And that is precisely what Durkheim did.

Furthermore, such a process is, according to Popper (1968, p. 63 andpassim) that of explaining the known by the unknown. From the point ofview of innovative scientific advance such a procedure is unavoidable. Forour handles on the world are symbolic, conceptual handles. And these con-ceptual handles are supplied by the mind, not the eye. If we are to advanceour intellectual understanding of the world, then we must invent theseconceptual tools. At the same time we may stress that this conjecturalcharacter of scientific systems does not make them any less real. Thetest, of course, is whether or not the world does offer direct or indirectcorroboration of the existence of our conceptual categories (see Feyerabend,1964). Yet because our grasp of the social and natural world is tied to ourtheories and conceptual devices, the fashioning of conceptual maps is theonly means by which we can come to understand the world better, no matterhow preliminary or tentative our guesses may be in their inception.

Discussion and Conclusion

In the foregoing analysis of Durkheims progress in the development of asociological explanation of suicide, I have shown that Durkheims innovationwas an abductive inference, a new conceptual mapping of an old set of data.To be sure, one can find Durkheim also making inductive generalizations,some of them based on new data. Certainly the conclusions drawn from the25,000 cases of suicide procured from the Ministry of Justice of France forthe period 188g-I89I were inductive inferences. But all the questions ofprobabilistic representation for France as well as the rest of Europe remainedunresolved. Furthermore, Durkheim clearly admits that others, for example,Bertillon and Swedish officials, had made similar tabulations. ConsequentlyDurkheims additional data was consciously gathered as a verificationexercise and could only have been inspired by an idea that such data wouldbe crucial for a theory already formulated.

In sum, Durkheims innovation was a theoretical innovation achievedthrough a series of conceptual innovations which reduced the causes of varia-

255tions in rates of suicide from near-infinity to a finite and parsimonious set.It was therefore not achieved primarily through a pioneering developmentand use of multivariate analysis. At best, such a technique could be usedin the task of justifying his theoretical beliefs.

Despite Durkheims claim in the Rules that from sensations all generalideas flow (1938, p. 44), I have shown that Durkheims progress toward amore viable explanation of suicide was most significantly advanced byDurkheims own postulation of imaginative new conceptions, not themeasuring and collecting of new facts. Moreover, this new formulationrequired the rejection of previous theories as well as Durkheims ownearlier conceptions and beginning assumptions (for example, his conceptionof altruistic suicide). Clearly such a pattern indicates that theoreticaladvance has a strongly discontinuous side to it: theoretical advance isgained at the cost of rejecting previous theoretical statements (see Agassi,1963, pp. 54-60). ,We can only speculate as to whether or not Durkheim came to understand

these methodological aspects of his explanation of suicide and that it actuallyillustrates Kants idealist thesis. But there is the strongest evidence thatDurkheim did come to hold Kants view. For in the Elementary Forms of theReligious Life ([1912] 1965, p. 27o) Durkheim asserted:Sensations, which see nothing except from the outside, could never make [suchdiverse objects] disclose these relations and internal bonds; the intellect alone cancreate the notion of them .... The great service that religions have rendered tothought is that they have constructed first representations of what these relationsof kinship between things may be .... The essential thing was not to leave themind enslaved to visible appearances, but to teach it to dominate them and toconnect what the senses separated; for from the moment when men have an ideathat there are internal connections between things, science and philosophy becomepossible.

Despite the recent spate of works on Durkheim (LaCapra, 1972; Lukes,1972; Nisbet, ig~4; Poggi, rg~2; Wallwork, 1972) we have not had an ade,quate conceptual analysis of the theoretical advances and shifts in Durkheimssociological explanations which would at all parallel studies of theoreticalinnovation in the natural science, for example those of Hanson (1958, 1963),Kuhn (ig~o) and others. And this stems only in part from the less developedstate of sociological thought. Despite the many critics of sociologys retardedstate when compared to the natural sciences (see Lachenmeyer, 1971;Mazur, ig68; Park, 1968), vagueness, opacity and ambiguity can be foundin all the sciences. Similarly, brilliant works of theoretical innovation whichsignificantly advance scientific thought can be found in the social as well asthe natural sciences (see Huff, 1973, 1974).

256Within the present context it may still be argued that Durkheims expla-

nation of suicide remains the paradigmatic sociological explanation. But thatis not to say that it is free from error, overstatement or conceptual ambiguity.That was too much even for Newton (among others, see Koyr6, 1965).

Southeastern Massachusetts University

NOTES

I For non-sociologists these studies include among others, Cresswell, I972; Dohrenwend, I959;Douglas, I967; Gibbs and Martin, I958, I964; Giddens, I965; Johnson, I965; LaCapra, I972;Lukes, I972; Madge, I962; Martin, I968; Poggi, I972; Selvin, I958, I965; Wallwork, 1972.

2 Multivariate analysis has been described as the study and interpretation of complex inter-relationships among a multiplicity of characteristics (Selvin, I965, p. II4). It is simply ananalysis of correlations in which additional variables are introduced through cross-tabulationwhich results in the partialing out of successive variables by introducing controls. SeeLazarsfeld and Rosenberg, I955, section II.

3 But even here it is not a case of the total absence of information of a particular kind. It is ratherthe relative adequacy of the data from the point of view of reliability and probabilistic sampling.

4 Durkheim in fact gives priority to Morselli in conclusively establishing this variation. SeeDurkheim (I95I, p. 203).

5 Citations from Suicide et natalite here are from a translation which my colleague Dr. Theo J.Kalikow executed.

6 The complications of interpreting the variations in rates of suicide for the married and thesingle stem from three sources: lack of uniform statistics by age and marital status; contrastingrates for single persons by sex in different countries, and national variations in immunity tosuicide for married males and females. Beyond that, the status of widowhood Durkheim alsothought important for his theory. But the idea of contrasting these four social statuses wassuggested to Durkheim by the work of the two Bertillons as early as I879. See Durkheim (I95I,pp. I7I-7). Moreover, Morsellis data clearly indicates that the suicide rate goes up withadvancing age, and since the single are concentrated in the youthful ages, there would be anobvious bias in the official data against married persons, since they would be older in general.

7 Since Durkheim treats military suicides as the modem version of altruistic suicide, Morsellissummary of the data for Europe indicating a uniformly higher rate for the military (plus hisown data yielding a rate for the military in Italy of I4 times higher than the civilian rate), makesit clear that the data for this type had also existed for I8 years before Suicide. Voluntary deathsof primitives was also well known, though Durkheim and others refused at first to recognizethem as suicides.

8 Although Fermis speculations here on the existence of the neutrino date from about I934, theneutrino was not observed or measured until I956 (see Cowan and Reines, I956).

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