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Rules of the Sociological Method (French: Les Règles de la Méthode Sociologique), is a book by Émile Durkheim, first published in 1895. It is recognized for being the direct result of Durkheim's own project of establishing sociology as a positivist social science. It thus suggests two central theses, without which sociology would not be a science:

1. It must have a specific object of study. Unlike philosophy or psychology, sociology's proper object of study is the social fact.
2. It must respect and apply a recognized objective, scientific method, bringing it as close as possible to the other exact sciences. This method must at all cost avoid prejudice and subjective judgment.

See also

• Suicide (Emile Durkheim: 1897)
• A General View of Positivism (Auguste Comte: 1844)
• Anomie
• Structural functionalism