Your analysis should focus on one of the following topics:

1.Critically examine Durkheim’s claim that ‘social facts should be studied as things’Introductory ReadingsBenton & Craib (2011). The Philosophy of Social Science.(2nded.). London: Routledge, Chapters 2-3 and 5. Essential ReadingsGane, M. (2009). ‘Durkheim’s Project for a Sociological Science’, in Ritzer, G and Barry, S. (eds) Handbook of Social Theory. London: SAGE, pp. 79-88. Hund, John (1982). Are Social Facts Real? The British Journal of Sociology, 33 (2): 270-278.Craib, I. (1997) Classical Social Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Oxford: Oxford: University Press, Chapter 3, Durkheim: the discovery of social facts, pp. 25-34.

2.Compare and contrast the concepts of ‘naturalism’ proposed by at least TWO positivist social scientific theorists (Auguste Comte. Emile Durkheim, Herbert Spencer) and consider the limitations of these ‘naturalist’ approaches for helping social scientists to research and understand societies.