Editing Émile Durkheim (section)

=== Realism ===
A second influence on Durkheim's view of society beyond Comte's positivism was the [[Epistemology|epistemological]] outlook called ''social [[scientific realism|realism]]''. Although he never explicitly espoused it, Durkheim adopted a realist perspective in order to demonstrate the existence of social realities outside the individual and to show that these realities existed in the form of the objective relations of society.<ref name="Morrison_152">{{harvp|Morrison|2006|p=152}}</ref> As an epistemology of science, ''realism'' can be defined as a perspective that takes as its central point of departure the view that external social realities exist in the outer world and that these realities are independent of the [[subjectivity|individual's perception]] of them.

This view opposes other predominant philosophical perspectives such as [[empiricism]] and [[positivism]]. Empiricists, like [[David Hume]], had argued that all realities in the outside world are products of human sense perception, thus all realities are merely perceived: they do not exist independently of our perceptions, and have no causal power in themselves.<ref name="Morrison_152" /> Comte's positivism went a step further by claiming that scientific laws could be deduced from empirical observations. Going beyond this, Durkheim claimed that sociology would not only discover "apparent" laws, but would be able to discover the ''inherent nature'' of society.