French sociologist Georges Gurvitch created his sociological approach, which he called "dialectical hyper-empiricism", and which is often called "deep sociology". Gurvitch's dialectical hyper-empiricism is a combination of the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and Max Scheler, on the one hand, and the dialectical materialism of Karl Marx, on the other. Although Gurvitch was critical of phenomenology, he nevertheless took the concepts of "intentionality" and "open consciousness" from that approach, to develop a theory that could explain the connection between society and individual consciousness. According to Gurvitch, Marx's dialectical materialism is the basis for understanding the macro levels of society. Gurvitch developed his own dialectical approach to social structure, denying the existence of rigid structures and emphasizing the fluidity of the "structuration" process. He took the position of Marcel Mauss that the subject of sociology should be "total social phenomena". This view sees society as a whole while avoiding various reductionisms, such as "abstract culturalism", sociologism, and psychologism. Gurvitch considered that society has an ontological priority in relation to the individual.

Dialectics seeks to discover the primary dialectic aspects of social change. There are three basic features of dialectics: 1) constant movement towards the construction of unity and totality versus uncertainty; 2) method for understanding real changing totality; 3) search for the engaged aspect of human behavior. The dialectic should reject all preconceived concepts and adopt concepts that enable human society to be seen as a totality, but also as the sum of its parts. Dialectics should deal with dichotomies and polarities. It should reject attempts to simplify and crystallize knowledge because that makes it impossible to understand the totality. Dialectics should deal with the complexities, tensions, and uncertainties that constantly exist and operate in society. Hyper-empiricism refers precisely to the constant observation and study of social reality in order to determine and build true knowledge, based on empirical evidence.

Dialectical hyper-empiricism should serve as a barrier to any dogmatism and reductionism that the totality of society tends to reduce to some preconceived concepts and axioms. The fundamental character of society and each group is dialectical, and therefore the study of these phenomena requires the use of dialectical processes. There are five dialectical processes: 1) complementarity - no social whole can be reduced to just one factor (e.g. economic, political, etc.); 2) mutual implication - psychological and sociological phenomena overlap and combine; 3) ambiguity - social wholes either go towards an unstable equilibrium or move towards destruction and dedifferentiation; 4) polarization - conflicts and tensions that break up structures; 5) reciprocity of perspectives - love and togetherness that unites the group as a whole, opposite to the process of polarization. In his book The Social Frameworks of Knowledge (1971, in French 1966), Gurvitch applied this typology to the sociology of knowledge.

Gurvitch believed that the best approach to the study of society, following the example of Max Weber, was to develop complex typologies, which would serve to analyze all levels of social reality. He divided the whole social reality into two main dimensions, one horizontal, which includes "social types" (cadres sociaux), and one vertical, which studies the "depth levels" of society. On the horizontal dimension, he singles out three basic social types: forms of sociability, groups, and global societies. Each of these types contains multiple sub-types. Forms of sociability are divided into communion, community, and mass. Gurvitch believes that structured groups should be distinguished from organized groups. Structured groups do not have a formal organization, but rather represent a grouping of people according to a statistical category, while organized groups have specific organizations that fight for the interests of the group. In this sense, for example, social classes can be structured without being organized.

The vertical axis, which refers to the depth levels of total social phenomena, divides social reality based on the levels of spontaneity or rigidity of social phenomena. The highest levels are the most stable and easiest to observe and study, while the deepest levels are the least stable and the most difficult to study. In essence, Gurvitch developed a similar division to Durkheim, which had five levels, so he introduced a division into ten different depth levels (arranged from the surface to the deepest): 1) morphological and ecological surface; 2) social organizations; 3) social patterns; 4) regular collective behavior (outside organizations); 5) web of social rules (social roles); 6) collective attitudes; 7) social symbols; 8) spontaneous, innovative and creative behavior; 9) collective ideas and values; 10) collective consciousness. Using these two dimensions, Gurvitch wanted to connect the macro and micro-sociological perspective.

In the book, Determinism and Human Freedom (in French 1955) Gurvitch studied the applicability of deterministic causal laws to the study of society. He believes that the subject of sociology is too complex to establish deterministic relations and laws of causality that would have a general application. In his opinion, all deterministic relations are always partial and applicable only to specific cases. He believed that the issue of freedom, as an opportunity to question the existing situation and to act in order to implement change, is crucial for sociology.

He singled out six levels of freedom: 1) arbitrary liberty - the choice of subjective unconscious preferences; 2) innovative freedom - a careful choice between alternatives; 3) liberty choice – choosing between multiple options when faced with negative influences; 4) innovative liberty devises new alternative courses of action; 5) decisive liberty - action aimed at overcoming or annulling the existing situation by removing all obstacles; 6) creative liberty - the constant creation of new forms of art or knowledge, this freedom represents the deepest level of freedom. Every level of freedom is met with opposition from others to make a change to the existing situation, but freedom is, precisely, the social force that reduces deterministic relations in society. Freedom means that total social phenomena are in a constant state of structuration and destructuration. Both individual and collective social actors can have freedom. The goal of hyper-empiricism is to explore all possible manifestations of collective and individual freedom.

Gurvitch believed that sociologists could not completely separate themselves from the subject of their study, because they are an integral part of it. The dialectical method helps sociologists to accept the implicit relationships that exist between the values ​​that sociologists have and their methods, as well as to understand their own role in society. He advocated building a society characterized by participatory democracy, where political decisions would be made at the level of individuals and local communities, and where such communities would be the group owners of economic capital.

Books:

Gurvitch. The Spectrum of Social Time (1958);

     -     Dialectique et sociologie (1962);

     -     The Social Frameworks of Knowledge (1971, in French 1966);