Total social phenomenon

A total social phenomenon is “an human activity which has implications in all the company, in the spheres economic, legal, political, and religious” (translation of Sedgewick 2002: 95).

Social reality

It is Marcel Mauss which popularized the term. It is in the Essai on the gift , that it introduced the concept in Total Social Fact.

For Mauss, the total social fact gives a total significance of reality. It is not an arbitrary accumulation of details. It is defined in space, in time, at an individual of a certain company.

This concept proceeds of the concern of defining social reality in an individual experiment studied according to two axes:

In an individual history, which allows the behavior of beings total and not divided into discontinuous aspects. I.e. to take an individual like a whole without being likely to give priority to a particular characteristic (family, economic, religious,…).

In a Anthropology, by simultaneously taking account of the physical aspects, psychic and sociological of all the conduits observed.

The total social fact is three-dimensional: it gives an account at the same time of:

sociological dimension in a synchronic aspect (at a given moment).
historical dimension in a diachronic aspect (with the wire of time).
physio-psychological dimension.

It is obviously at the individuals that one can make coincide these three dimensions.

To connect the social one and the individual one, to connect the physique and the psychic one

As in all the theory of Mauss, the concept in total social fact reflects the concern of connecting the social one and the individual one on the one hand, the physique and the psychic one on the other hand. Indeed, for him, the Social one is projected on the individual one via education, of the needs and the body activities. A Société exerts the children to select movements, stops, to overcome reflexes, etc Any phenomenon psychological is a sociological phenomenon because he was taught by the company. Mauss encouraged the researchers to draw up an inventory of all the uses which the Men still made and make of their body during the Histoire and throughout the world. It is what it develops in its article " Techniques of the corps".

The total social fact includes/understands:

Various methods from social (legal system, economic system,…).
Various moments of an individual history (various life cycles like the Birth, the Childhood, it], the Dead,…).
Various forms of expression:

Physiological: Reflexes, secretions,…
Unconscious
Conscious, individual or collective.

In the thought of Mauss, there exists a dynamic complementarity between the psychic one and the social one. This dynamism comes owing to the fact that the psychic one is explained and explains the social Symbolisme.

The observer is itself part of its observation

The total fact social necessarily implies that all that is observed belongs to the observation but more especially that the observer is itself part of its observation (it belongs to the system observed). Kilani, in its work the invention of the other quotes Levi-Strauss besides on this subject - " the observer is itself part of sound observation". What he understands by there it is which the place which the anthropologist in the social structure of the studied company takes, in the stereotype made by the researcher, fact part of the cultural translation which is intended to us and which consequently, one could not include/understand remarks if this parameter in consideration is not taken. It is not difficult to imagine that the remarks can proceed differently if the observer were not there. This phenomenon is valid in all sciences. For example, in physics, when Planck wanted to observe the electron S, it realized of the influence generated by the Photon S coming from the light of the microscope on the speed and the trajectory of the electrons. Observed, the Matière does not behave any more same manner. In Psychology, the systemic theory includes the therapeutist with the family or institutional system which she studies.

To include/understand a social fact suitably, it should be apprehended completely. I.e., by taking account of the Observer. The observation must be internal: it must be that of the Indigène or at least, that of the observer reviving the indigenous experiment. Since it knows that it belongs to the system observed, the observer must be observed like experimental subject. It will be able never to be abolished as a subject, but it will be able to try to objectify to the maximum its observation by excluding its own influences more and more.

Ex:

the observer observes a subject,
the observer is observed observant observing a subject,
the observer is observed observant being observed observant observing a subject,
etc

Mauss, convinced of the need for collaboration enters the Sociologie and the Psychologie, presents the characters common or specific social facts like concerning the Inconscient. The unconscious one would be for him the mediator between me and others.

By the Psychoanalysis, we can meet our me most foreign thanks to the discovery of our unconscious. By the ethnological study, we can always meet the most foreign Others thanks to the unconscious one.

For Mauss, the Inconscient is a system symbolic system, Inné.

To reach major realities

In " Test on the don" , Mauss for the first time in the sociological history, exceeds the empirical observation to reach major realities. For the first time, the social one exceeds the anecdote, description (often moralizing). He discovers connections, equivalences, solidarity between companies. There exist generalizable systems of fundamental values. Mauss sees a constant relationship between the phenomena and their explanation. In certain fields like that of the relationship, Mauss discovered precise mathematical rules subjected to deductive reasoning which explained the behaviors. It opens the door with the science of Malinowski.

In the economic system, Mauss proposes to call the system of the total services, of clan with clan, that in which individuals and groups exchange NT all between them.

In all its theory, Mauss seeks to discover the obscure zones, the most secret recesses of the thought, persuaded which they can be observed only on the social plan by the language or the physiological plane .

Distinctions

social Phénomène
Makes social
sociological Phénomène
Société

Some works on the universal morals of the gift

Jean-Luc Boilleau, 1995, Conflict and social link. Competition against the domination , Découverte/MAUSS, Paris.
Alain Caillé, 1994, Gift, interest and satisfying, Bourdieu, Mauss, Plato and some others, Découverte/MAUSS, Paris.
Marcel Baker, 1995, Marcel Mauss , Grasset.
Jacques T. Godbout (in collaboration with Alain Caillé), 1992, the Spirit of the gift , the Discovery, Paris.
Maurice Godelier, 1996, the Enigma of the gift , Grasset, Paris.
Bruno Karsenti, 1994, Mauss, the total social fact , PUF, collection Sophie Philosophy, Paris.
Marcel Mauss, study published in L Year sociological , 1923-1924, rééd. Marcel Mauss, “Test on the gift”, in Sociology and anthropology , 2001, PUF, Paris.

Guy Nicolas, Of the ritual gift to the supreme sacrifice , 1996, the Discovery MAUSS, Paris.

the Re-examined MAUSS , n° 4,1994, “With which to trust? Confidence, interaction and game theory”, Découverte/MAUSS, Paris.

the Re-examined MAUSS , n° 5,1995, “What good is it to sacrifice itself? Gift, sacrifice and interest”, Découverte/MAUSS, Paris.

Jean-Claude Passeron, 1995, “Weber and Pareto; the meeting of rationality in social sciences”, in Louis Gerard-Varet and Jean-Claude Passeron (under the direction of), the Model and the investigation, uses of the principle of rationality in social sciences , Editions of the EHESS, Paris.

Philippe Rospabé, 1995, the Debt of life , At the origins of the wild currency, Découverte/MAUSS, Paris.

Anglophone works

Gordon Marshall, ED. (1994). The Concise Oxford Dictionary off Sociology . Oxford University Near. ISBN 0-19-285237-X.
Thomas Ford Hoult, ED. (1969). Dictionary off Modern Sociology . Totowa, New Jersey: Littlefield, Adams & Co.
Peter Sedgewick (2002). Farming Theory: The Key Concepts , Routledge Key Guides Series. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-28426-0.
Andrew Edgar (2002). Farming Theory: The Key Thinkers , Routledge Key Guides Series. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-23281-3.

German-speaking works

Emile Durkheim: Regeln DER soziologischen Method . Neuwied und Berlin 1961ff. (frz. Originalausgabe: Paris 1895)
Andreas Diekmann: Empirische Sozialforschung . 1995ff
Hans Joas (Hg.): Lehrbuch der Soziologie , 2007 (3.Aufl.)
Herrmann Korte: Soziologie , 2004

See too

Internal articles

Gift and counterpresent

External bonds

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