ABSTRACT
DOMAIN The very first sentence of Chapter One of the Rules suggests that method can only be applied to an object of study: and the discussion of the object of sociology could be regarded as not being, strictly speaking, a problem of method at all, but as an issue in theoretical construction. This seems to be confirmed in so far as the chapter works its way towards a definition of social facts rather than a methodological rule. It is clear, also, from Durkheim’s earlier lectures, that the point at which the Rules begins is already a long way down the road that he had begun to travel. By omitting the presentation of the initial sociological problem, the opening chapter of the Rules very much gives the impression that it is simply a substitute for such theory, for it appears as the depiction of a terrain on which work prior to excavation can begin, rather than the auxiliary protocol to a specific sociological research programme linked to its political and theoretical sources.
