CAUSAL ANALYTIC METHODS IN SOCIOLOGY: A COMPARISON OF THE SIMON-BLALOCK METHOD AND THE METHODS OF DURKHEIM’S LE SUICIDE

The article analyses the methods employed in causal reasoning in sociology, which can be viewed as analytic. As a paradigmatic example of these methods, the Simon-Blalock method is examined. First, those characteristics of a method of science that turn it into an analytic method are delineated. Then the article offers a general characteristic of methods of causal reasoning as employed in sociology and shows why they can be viewed as being analytic by their very nature. Finally, the article shows how Durkheim combined analytic methods applied to egoistic suicide with nonanalytic methods in his causal reasoning about this type of suicide.