What do you think?
Rate this book
The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life
The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (French: Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse), published by French sociologist Émile Durkheim in 1912, is a book that analyzes religion as a social phenomenon. Durkheim attributes the development of religion to the emotional security attained through communal living.
According to Durkheim, early humans associated such feelings not only with one another, but as well with objects in their environment. This, Durkheim believed, led to the ascription of human sentiments and superhuman powers to these objects, in turn leading to totemism. The essence of religion, Durkheim finds, is the concept of the sacred, that being the only phenomenon which unites all religions. "A religion," writes Durkheim, "is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden—beliefs and practices which unite into a single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them." In modern societies, the individual and individual rights evolve to become the new sacred phenomena, and hence these may be called "religious" for Durkheim.
Durkheim examined religion using such examples as Pueblo Indian rain dances, the religions of aboriginal tribes in Australia, and alcoholic hallucinations.
According to Durkheim, early humans associated such feelings not only with one another, but as well with objects in their environment. This, Durkheim believed, led to the ascription of human sentiments and superhuman powers to these objects, in turn leading to totemism. The essence of religion, Durkheim finds, is the concept of the sacred, that being the only phenomenon which unites all religions. "A religion," writes Durkheim, "is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden—beliefs and practices which unite into a single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them." In modern societies, the individual and individual rights evolve to become the new sacred phenomena, and hence these may be called "religious" for Durkheim.
Durkheim examined religion using such examples as Pueblo Indian rain dances, the religions of aboriginal tribes in Australia, and alcoholic hallucinations.
476 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1912
About the author
Émile Durkheim
293 books725 followersMuch of Durkheim's work was concerned with how societies could maintain their integrity and coherence in modernity; an era in which traditional social and religious ties are no longer assumed, and in which new social institutions have come into being. His first major sociological work was The Division of Labor in Society (1893). In 1895, he published his Rules of the Sociological Method and set up the first European department of sociology, becoming France's first professor of sociology.
In 1896, he established the journal L'Année Sociologique. Durkheim's seminal monograph, Suicide (1897), a study of suicide rates amongst Catholic and Protestant populations, pioneered modern social research and served to distinguish social science from psychology and political philosophy. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912), presented a theory of religion, comparing the social and cultural lives of aboriginal and modern societies.
Durkheim was also deeply preoccupied with the acceptance of sociology as a legitimate science. He refined the positivism originally set forth by Auguste Comte, promoting what could be considered as a form of epistemological realism, as well as the use of the hypothetico-deductive model in social science. For him, sociology was the science of institutions,[citation needed] its aim being to discover structural social facts. Durkheim was a major proponent of structural functionalism, a foundational perspective in both sociology and anthropology. In his view, social science should be purely holistic; that is, sociology should study phenomena attributed to society at large, rather than being limited to the specific actions of individuals.
He remained a dominant force in French intellectual life until his death in 1917, presenting numerous lectures and published works on a variety of topics, including the sociology of knowledge, morality, social stratification, religion, law, education, and deviance. Durkheimian terms such as "collective consciousness" have since entered the popular lexicon.
In 1896, he established the journal L'Année Sociologique. Durkheim's seminal monograph, Suicide (1897), a study of suicide rates amongst Catholic and Protestant populations, pioneered modern social research and served to distinguish social science from psychology and political philosophy. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912), presented a theory of religion, comparing the social and cultural lives of aboriginal and modern societies.
Durkheim was also deeply preoccupied with the acceptance of sociology as a legitimate science. He refined the positivism originally set forth by Auguste Comte, promoting what could be considered as a form of epistemological realism, as well as the use of the hypothetico-deductive model in social science. For him, sociology was the science of institutions,[citation needed] its aim being to discover structural social facts. Durkheim was a major proponent of structural functionalism, a foundational perspective in both sociology and anthropology. In his view, social science should be purely holistic; that is, sociology should study phenomena attributed to society at large, rather than being limited to the specific actions of individuals.
He remained a dominant force in French intellectual life until his death in 1917, presenting numerous lectures and published works on a variety of topics, including the sociology of knowledge, morality, social stratification, religion, law, education, and deviance. Durkheimian terms such as "collective consciousness" have since entered the popular lexicon.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 156 reviews
January 7, 2024
امیل دورکیم در این کتاب، به جنبهٔ اجتماعی دین توجه میکند و این جنبه را اساس دین به حساب میآورد. به باور دورکیم، اگر دین همچنان که هیوم و دیگر دینپژوهان نخستین میگفتند، تنها مبتنی بر شناختی نادرست و حتی احمقانه از طبیعت بود، خیلی زود از بین میرفت. دین از نظر دورکیم جنبهای حقیقی دارد که به رغم خطاهای شناختی، دین را طی تاریخ طولانیاش حفظ کرده و این همان جنبهٔ اجتماعی دین است. دین پیش از آن که چیزی باشد که یک فرد مینشیند و به آن فکر میکند، «کاری» است که یک گروه اجتماعی گرد میآیند و انجام میدهند.
دورکیم برای مطالعۀ گوهر اصلی دین، به سراغ سادهترین دین میرود. چرا که دینهای پیچیده به مرور زمان با آموزههای فلسفه یونان و حقوق روم و بسیاری چیزهای دیگر آمیخته شدهاند و دیگر دین خالص را بازنمایی نمیکنند. بلکه ترکیبی از همۀ دستاوردهای فرهنگی بشر شدهاند. در این راستا، دورکیم با انتخاب چند سنت دینی در استرالیا و پس از آن سرخپوستان آمریکا (که در نظر دورکیم دینشان به سادگی و خلوص دین استرالیاییها نیست و پیشرفتها و آمیختگیهایی داشته است) مطالعه خود را آغاز میکند.
دورکیم توجه میکند که در جوامع بدوی استرالیایی، محور اصلی دین نه یک شیء خاص، بلکه یک کیفیت است. هر چند در نظر اول این جوامع یک جانور یا گیاه توتمی را میپرستند، اما با دقت در رفتارشان میتوان دید که آن حیوان خاص یا این گیاه خاص نیستند که موضوع پرستشند. چرا که میبینیم ممکن است یک سنگ معمولی با طرح توتم در مناسک قبیلهای مورد پرستش قرار گیرد و پس از پایان مراسم به سادگی به دور انداخته شود. حتی خود نماد توتم نیز موضوع اصلی پرستش نیست. بلکه کیفیت مقدس بودن، در مقابل نامقدس بودن، کیفیتی غیرملموس است که در چیزی قرار میگیرد و آن را مقدس میکند. با بررسی امور مقدس و نامقدس در میان قبایل بدوی، دورکیم نشان میدهد که هر آن چه به زندگی شخصی و نیازهای روزمره مربوط میشود نامقدس است، و هر آن چه به زندگی جمعی قبیله مربوط میشود، مقدس. در حقیقت این خود حیات اجتماعی قبیله است که چیزی را مقدس میکند و توتم نیز در مرحلهٔ اول نه یک حیوان خارجی، بلکه نماد یا پرچم قبیله است. نمادی است که به ذهن سادهٔ انسان نخستین اجازه میداد به چیزی انتزاعی که نمیتوانست درست درک کند (حیات اجتماعی) شکل عینی و بیرونی بدهد تا بتواند موضوع پرستش قرار گیرد. جوامع ابتدایی با توتمپرستی و جوامع بعدی با نمادهای دینی دیگر، در حقیقت خود را میپرستیدند. خود را در نمادی خارجی که نماد وحدتشان بود برونفکنی میکردند و در آینۀ آن، خود را میپرستیدند.
دورکیم سپس این فعالیت اجتماعی را که دین مینامد، در مقابل فعالیتی فردی قرار میدهد که جادو میخواند و تفاوتهای آنها را بررسی میکند. جادو بر خلاف دین کلیسا یا معبدی برای اجتماع و عبادت جمعی ندارد. فرد بنا به نیاز شخصی سراغ جادوگر میرود و پس از برطرف شدن نیازش از جادوگر جدا میشود. وجه سودطلبانه و فردی جادو آن را از دین جدا میکند.
این وجه اجتماعی دین تنها امری انتزاعی نیست، بلکه حقیقتا در جمعهای دینی، افراد حالت روانشناختی خاصی تجربه میکنند که در فعالیت دینی منفرد تجربه نمیکنند. خلسهها و احساس وحدت با جمع و گذشتن از فردیت خود و غرق شدن در شور جمع، تجربههای واقعی روانی است که افراد در این اجتماعات تجربه میکنند.
دورکیم برای مطالعۀ گوهر اصلی دین، به سراغ سادهترین دین میرود. چرا که دینهای پیچیده به مرور زمان با آموزههای فلسفه یونان و حقوق روم و بسیاری چیزهای دیگر آمیخته شدهاند و دیگر دین خالص را بازنمایی نمیکنند. بلکه ترکیبی از همۀ دستاوردهای فرهنگی بشر شدهاند. در این راستا، دورکیم با انتخاب چند سنت دینی در استرالیا و پس از آن سرخپوستان آمریکا (که در نظر دورکیم دینشان به سادگی و خلوص دین استرالیاییها نیست و پیشرفتها و آمیختگیهایی داشته است) مطالعه خود را آغاز میکند.
دورکیم توجه میکند که در جوامع بدوی استرالیایی، محور اصلی دین نه یک شیء خاص، بلکه یک کیفیت است. هر چند در نظر اول این جوامع یک جانور یا گیاه توتمی را میپرستند، اما با دقت در رفتارشان میتوان دید که آن حیوان خاص یا این گیاه خاص نیستند که موضوع پرستشند. چرا که میبینیم ممکن است یک سنگ معمولی با طرح توتم در مناسک قبیلهای مورد پرستش قرار گیرد و پس از پایان مراسم به سادگی به دور انداخته شود. حتی خود نماد توتم نیز موضوع اصلی پرستش نیست. بلکه کیفیت مقدس بودن، در مقابل نامقدس بودن، کیفیتی غیرملموس است که در چیزی قرار میگیرد و آن را مقدس میکند. با بررسی امور مقدس و نامقدس در میان قبایل بدوی، دورکیم نشان میدهد که هر آن چه به زندگی شخصی و نیازهای روزمره مربوط میشود نامقدس است، و هر آن چه به زندگی جمعی قبیله مربوط میشود، مقدس. در حقیقت این خود حیات اجتماعی قبیله است که چیزی را مقدس میکند و توتم نیز در مرحلهٔ اول نه یک حیوان خارجی، بلکه نماد یا پرچم قبیله است. نمادی است که به ذهن سادهٔ انسان نخستین اجازه میداد به چیزی انتزاعی که نمیتوانست درست درک کند (حیات اجتماعی) شکل عینی و بیرونی بدهد تا بتواند موضوع پرستش قرار گیرد. جوامع ابتدایی با توتمپرستی و جوامع بعدی با نمادهای دینی دیگر، در حقیقت خود را میپرستیدند. خود را در نمادی خارجی که نماد وحدتشان بود برونفکنی میکردند و در آینۀ آن، خود را میپرستیدند.
دورکیم سپس این فعالیت اجتماعی را که دین مینامد، در مقابل فعالیتی فردی قرار میدهد که جادو میخواند و تفاوتهای آنها را بررسی میکند. جادو بر خلاف دین کلیسا یا معبدی برای اجتماع و عبادت جمعی ندارد. فرد بنا به نیاز شخصی سراغ جادوگر میرود و پس از برطرف شدن نیازش از جادوگر جدا میشود. وجه سودطلبانه و فردی جادو آن را از دین جدا میکند.
این وجه اجتماعی دین تنها امری انتزاعی نیست، بلکه حقیقتا در جمعهای دینی، افراد حالت روانشناختی خاصی تجربه میکنند که در فعالیت دینی منفرد تجربه نمیکنند. خلسهها و احساس وحدت با جمع و گذشتن از فردیت خود و غرق شدن در شور جمع، تجربههای واقعی روانی است که افراد در این اجتماعات تجربه میکنند.
August 17, 2015
As I meander through the social science of religion, Durkheim is a breath of fresh air. Frazer’s interpretations are interesting, and he has many accurate things to say about magical psychology. But in the end, his perspective is rather narrow. William James does a great job of explaining religious feelings without de-valuing them, and his discussion of mysticism is a must-read; but James fails to take into account the (extremely important) social aspects of religion. For me, Durkheim’s explanations are the most convincing and the most applicable. They transfer over from religion to all public spectacles – concerts, sports, civil ceremonies, etc. Although, it should be said that Durkheim’s discussion of the historical progression of religious ideas and his analysis of the aboriginals cannot be trusted. These parts of the book were the least interesting for me, and the least useful. Nevertheless, Durkheim manages to draw several general conclusions that make this book a must-read for any aspiring social scientists.
March 8, 2020
مقولات فاهمه، زبان، دین و سایر دستاوردهای اینچنینی تمدن بشری را یا باید با تقلیل آنها به کارکردهای فیزیولوژیک ذهن و بدن انسانها تفسیر کرد، یا آنها را به نیروهایی متعالی، ماورای بشر و غیرقابل شناخت علمی نسبت داد. اما دورکیم، راه سومی پیشنهاد میکند. او با تحقیقاتی گسترده در ادیان بدوی، و نیز با قدرت استدلال و نگاه انتقادی درخشان خود، به ما نشان میدهد که جامعه منشا اص��ی پیدایش همه این مفاهیم است. دورکیم جامعه را وجودی فراتر از فرد میداند که اگرچه از افراد تشکیل شده است، اما از فرد فرد اعضای تشکیلدهنده خود فراتر میرود. تنها به کمک جامعه است که مقولات فاهمه، مقولاتی که سنگ بنای تفکر و استدلال منطقی بشر است، قابلیت شکلگیری دارند. تنها جامعه است که میتواند از حدود فرد فراتر برود و پدیدهها را در شکل عام آنها ببیند. اساس تفکر منطقی نیز همین است: ایجاد امکان فراتر رفتن از خود و مشاهده پدیدهها در قالب عام آنها که جز به واسطه جامعه امکانپذیر نیست.
دورکیم در این کتاب، دین را به عنوان ابزار بازیابی حیات جمعی معرفی میکند. دین، نه تنها یک خیال و توهم نیست، بلکه یک واقعیت عینی است. جامعه به کمک مناسک دینی، همبستگی خود را تقویت میکند و به اعضای خود توانی میبخشد که فراتر از قدرت فردی آنهاست.
در شرایطی که امروز با وفور انتشار آثار عوامپسند و شبهعلم مواجه هستیم، آثاری که صرفا با تکیه بر شواهد معدود و استدلالهای ضعیف، تخیلات نویسندگانشان را به خورد مخاطب میدهند، 《صور بنیانی حیات دینی》 از جهت فرم نیز، به ما نشان میدهد که یک تحقیق علمی واقعی، هم از نظر اطلاعات و دادههای جمعآوری شده و هم از نظر قدرت استدلال و نقد، میتواند از چه غنای حیرتانگیزی برخوردار باشد.
دورکیم در این کتاب، دین را به عنوان ابزار بازیابی حیات جمعی معرفی میکند. دین، نه تنها یک خیال و توهم نیست، بلکه یک واقعیت عینی است. جامعه به کمک مناسک دینی، همبستگی خود را تقویت میکند و به اعضای خود توانی میبخشد که فراتر از قدرت فردی آنهاست.
در شرایطی که امروز با وفور انتشار آثار عوامپسند و شبهعلم مواجه هستیم، آثاری که صرفا با تکیه بر شواهد معدود و استدلالهای ضعیف، تخیلات نویسندگانشان را به خورد مخاطب میدهند، 《صور بنیانی حیات دینی》 از جهت فرم نیز، به ما نشان میدهد که یک تحقیق علمی واقعی، هم از نظر اطلاعات و دادههای جمعآوری شده و هم از نظر قدرت استدلال و نقد، میتواند از چه غنای حیرتانگیزی برخوردار باشد.
Read
August 4, 2019متاسفانه باید بگم چون کتاب رو بسیار پراکنده و نامنظم خوندم، شهیدش کردم و به همین خاطر نمی تونم چیز خاصی بگم.
July 16, 2016
One of my current reading projects is on Archaic Greece, and on my reading list are several books by Walter Burkert. In skimming through them, I noticed that they were rather dense and would require some background, so I looked at the bibliographies and notes, and then at the bibliographies and notes of the books they were based on, and then . . . my usual infinite regress. What I realized was that all the different paths seemed to converge on Durkheim's Elementary Forms, so I decided to start with this. Of course, Durkheim was hardly the first writer to deal with the origin of religions. The question goes back to the eighteenth and especially the nineteenth centuries; Durkheim himself begins by summarizing and polemicizing against the theories of Tylor (animism) and Max Müller (naturism), but since he does summarize them and I need to start somewhere, I'm not going any further back than this (and I have already read many of the authors he refers to such as Fustel de Coulanges, Lewis Henry Morgan, and Frazer's The Golden Bough -- I have to admit my reading in the social sciences is mostly a century or more out of date.) I'm reading it in the 1915 translation by Joseph Ward Swain, which I bought from a sale at the library; I know there are at least two recent translations which may be better, but I didn't find any passages that didn't make sense because of translation problems (although for a print book there were a lot of typos).
Durkheim begins by defining religion as the division of the world into the categories of the sacred and the profane. He makes a further distinction, which I did not find very satisfactory, between religion as social and magic as private. He simply assumes, like the earlier writers, that there had to be one single origin for religion, either it originated once very early or if it originated in many places, it had the same cause and form everywhere, and went through the same stages. (Actually, he does say that a single effect can only be due to a single cause, which is simply bad logic.) While there are enough similarities between the religions of different parts of the world that I can't accept the postmodernist claim that there are no regularities, I think the situation is probably more complex than these early anthropologists assumed. His preferred version of religious origin -- the "elementary forms" of the title -- is totemism. There is a major problem with his method, which is to try to find the earliest form of religion by looking at the most "primitive" contemporary peoples known to ethnography (he explains that by "primitive" he means essentially close to the origins), which he takes to be the native people of Australia. The premise here is that "primitive" people today were somehow stalled at an early level of development while other peoples evolved pastoralism and agriculture, and maintained the same culture as they had at the beginning. Now, even a little bit of reflexion should show that a people with a rudimentary hunter-gatherer culture such as that of the native Australians could never have reached Australia to begin with; it's basically a big island, and a culture like that would have neither the technology nor the motivation for long sea voyages. So it seems that the culture of the Australians must be a secondary adaptation to the environment there on the part of people whose ancestors were at a different stage of development; and thus there is no reason to suppose that their culture, and particularly their religious ideas, had any continuity or bear any close resemblance to the original hunter-gatherers of the Paleolithic. It's as though someone were to assume that because dolphins and whales live in the ocean, they represent the primitive form of animals before the first amphibians arrived on land. The same would be true for other hunter-gatherers today; they all live in marginal environments which would not have been the choice of the original hunter-gatherers, and were probably forced into those environments by movements of other peoples. The Amazon Basin for example has many small groups with some of the most rudimentary technologies known, yet there is evidence that before European diseases and conquest, the area was heavily populated and had specialized agriculture and trade. If any culture today represents the primary hunter-gatherer culture, we have no way of identifying it, or any reason for assuming that it would have remained unchanged for tens of thousands of years or had no outside contacts and influence.
The general theory he presents is that the distinction between the sacred and the profane -- i.e. for him the origin of religion -- was derived from the experience of assemblies of the clans; where the ordinary "profane" life of the Australians was in separate family groups searching for food, the periodic assemblies were a very different type of experience, and thus became "sacred". The feeling of sacredness of the clan became attached first to its name and emblem, then secondarily to the totem species which the name and emblem represented. The totem, and other entities related to it, became considered as a part of the clan. The sacredness of the totem and the clan became considered as a special, impersonal power -- "mana" -- which was distributed in varying intensities to all the clan members, totem animals, and symbolic items, or in short to everything which was considered sacred. The portion of the "mana" in the individual gave rise to the notion of the soul; the idea of ancestral souls gave rise to spirits; the spirits tended to become spirits of various topological features which were sacred to the clan; and these local spirits, having powers over various natural phenomena, were then generalized into gods. In other words, the stages in Australia -- and presumably everywhere else -- were totemism, pre-animism, animism, "higher religion." He does state that these were logical rather than chronological stages and probably the belief in souls was not later than totemism but merely logically derived from it. In all this evolution, the real essence of the sacred was society itself, the power of the group considered under the various forms of totems, souls, and spirits, because it was a power which was outside the individual. In the second part of the book, he discusses various rituals and explains them on the basis of this theory, including the origins of sacrifice in the double form of communion and oblation.
It is easy to see why this book had such influence. Its major thesis is that religion originated, not from misunderstandings of psychic or cosmic phenomena as others had theorized, but from social structures; that in fact religion was, and still is, a social construct reflecting the organization of a given society. Leaving aside the methodological problems, and the particular theory of the various "stages", this is certainly a major insight into the nature of religion. Of course others, in particular Karl Marx, had much earlier considered religion, like all intellectual activity, as a superstructure based on socio-economic relations, but Durkheim and his "sociological" school were among the first to introduce the idea that religion is a reflection of social categories into academic sociology and try to establish it in detail. One might have expected from his thesis that he, like Marx, would have developed a materialist analysis, but in fact he explicitly defines his theory as "idealist" and claims that it refutes materialism. Essentially, rather than going on to consider the origin of the social order itself, he sometimes claims in circular fashion that it is derived from the totemist beliefs themselves, but more often he treats it simply as a given absolute, which is independent of the conditions which gave rise to it; he then emphasizes that the rites and behaviors of the clan members is determined by the "idea" of the totem and related "ideas". However, when he's not trying to philosophize -- and justify religion rather than exlain it -- he emphasizes just the opposite point, that the ideas or beliefs of religion are secondary to the rituals themselves, which is another concept that has become influential in later theories of religion.
There is much of interest in the book; I was especially impressed by his discussion of early systems of classification, which classify all phenomena into categories based on phratries and clans on the criterion of opposition; i.e. if a black cockatoo belongs to one group, a white cockatoo has to be in the other. This to me cast a new light on the similar classifications in the Presocratic philosophers, which always seemed to me to be totally random. He suggests that a modern survival of this classification system is to be found in the languages which have grammatical gender. His explanation of taboo and asceticism as basically ways of isolating the sacred from the profane is also interesting. He doesn't consider in this book the marriage system and thus deliberately excludes sexual taboos, which might be difficult to explain on this theory; or perhaps the origins could be explained, but they certainly serve other social purposes as well.
Obviously, however, a more than a century-old book is mainly of interest for understanding the later theories and books which it influenced, and that is the purpose for which I am reading it and would recommend it.
Durkheim begins by defining religion as the division of the world into the categories of the sacred and the profane. He makes a further distinction, which I did not find very satisfactory, between religion as social and magic as private. He simply assumes, like the earlier writers, that there had to be one single origin for religion, either it originated once very early or if it originated in many places, it had the same cause and form everywhere, and went through the same stages. (Actually, he does say that a single effect can only be due to a single cause, which is simply bad logic.) While there are enough similarities between the religions of different parts of the world that I can't accept the postmodernist claim that there are no regularities, I think the situation is probably more complex than these early anthropologists assumed. His preferred version of religious origin -- the "elementary forms" of the title -- is totemism. There is a major problem with his method, which is to try to find the earliest form of religion by looking at the most "primitive" contemporary peoples known to ethnography (he explains that by "primitive" he means essentially close to the origins), which he takes to be the native people of Australia. The premise here is that "primitive" people today were somehow stalled at an early level of development while other peoples evolved pastoralism and agriculture, and maintained the same culture as they had at the beginning. Now, even a little bit of reflexion should show that a people with a rudimentary hunter-gatherer culture such as that of the native Australians could never have reached Australia to begin with; it's basically a big island, and a culture like that would have neither the technology nor the motivation for long sea voyages. So it seems that the culture of the Australians must be a secondary adaptation to the environment there on the part of people whose ancestors were at a different stage of development; and thus there is no reason to suppose that their culture, and particularly their religious ideas, had any continuity or bear any close resemblance to the original hunter-gatherers of the Paleolithic. It's as though someone were to assume that because dolphins and whales live in the ocean, they represent the primitive form of animals before the first amphibians arrived on land. The same would be true for other hunter-gatherers today; they all live in marginal environments which would not have been the choice of the original hunter-gatherers, and were probably forced into those environments by movements of other peoples. The Amazon Basin for example has many small groups with some of the most rudimentary technologies known, yet there is evidence that before European diseases and conquest, the area was heavily populated and had specialized agriculture and trade. If any culture today represents the primary hunter-gatherer culture, we have no way of identifying it, or any reason for assuming that it would have remained unchanged for tens of thousands of years or had no outside contacts and influence.
The general theory he presents is that the distinction between the sacred and the profane -- i.e. for him the origin of religion -- was derived from the experience of assemblies of the clans; where the ordinary "profane" life of the Australians was in separate family groups searching for food, the periodic assemblies were a very different type of experience, and thus became "sacred". The feeling of sacredness of the clan became attached first to its name and emblem, then secondarily to the totem species which the name and emblem represented. The totem, and other entities related to it, became considered as a part of the clan. The sacredness of the totem and the clan became considered as a special, impersonal power -- "mana" -- which was distributed in varying intensities to all the clan members, totem animals, and symbolic items, or in short to everything which was considered sacred. The portion of the "mana" in the individual gave rise to the notion of the soul; the idea of ancestral souls gave rise to spirits; the spirits tended to become spirits of various topological features which were sacred to the clan; and these local spirits, having powers over various natural phenomena, were then generalized into gods. In other words, the stages in Australia -- and presumably everywhere else -- were totemism, pre-animism, animism, "higher religion." He does state that these were logical rather than chronological stages and probably the belief in souls was not later than totemism but merely logically derived from it. In all this evolution, the real essence of the sacred was society itself, the power of the group considered under the various forms of totems, souls, and spirits, because it was a power which was outside the individual. In the second part of the book, he discusses various rituals and explains them on the basis of this theory, including the origins of sacrifice in the double form of communion and oblation.
It is easy to see why this book had such influence. Its major thesis is that religion originated, not from misunderstandings of psychic or cosmic phenomena as others had theorized, but from social structures; that in fact religion was, and still is, a social construct reflecting the organization of a given society. Leaving aside the methodological problems, and the particular theory of the various "stages", this is certainly a major insight into the nature of religion. Of course others, in particular Karl Marx, had much earlier considered religion, like all intellectual activity, as a superstructure based on socio-economic relations, but Durkheim and his "sociological" school were among the first to introduce the idea that religion is a reflection of social categories into academic sociology and try to establish it in detail. One might have expected from his thesis that he, like Marx, would have developed a materialist analysis, but in fact he explicitly defines his theory as "idealist" and claims that it refutes materialism. Essentially, rather than going on to consider the origin of the social order itself, he sometimes claims in circular fashion that it is derived from the totemist beliefs themselves, but more often he treats it simply as a given absolute, which is independent of the conditions which gave rise to it; he then emphasizes that the rites and behaviors of the clan members is determined by the "idea" of the totem and related "ideas". However, when he's not trying to philosophize -- and justify religion rather than exlain it -- he emphasizes just the opposite point, that the ideas or beliefs of religion are secondary to the rituals themselves, which is another concept that has become influential in later theories of religion.
There is much of interest in the book; I was especially impressed by his discussion of early systems of classification, which classify all phenomena into categories based on phratries and clans on the criterion of opposition; i.e. if a black cockatoo belongs to one group, a white cockatoo has to be in the other. This to me cast a new light on the similar classifications in the Presocratic philosophers, which always seemed to me to be totally random. He suggests that a modern survival of this classification system is to be found in the languages which have grammatical gender. His explanation of taboo and asceticism as basically ways of isolating the sacred from the profane is also interesting. He doesn't consider in this book the marriage system and thus deliberately excludes sexual taboos, which might be difficult to explain on this theory; or perhaps the origins could be explained, but they certainly serve other social purposes as well.
Obviously, however, a more than a century-old book is mainly of interest for understanding the later theories and books which it influenced, and that is the purpose for which I am reading it and would recommend it.
August 27, 2012
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1983853.html[return][return][return]I should stop readng the classic works on religion and culture, because I always end up disappointed. In this classic anthropological analysis from the first years of the twentieth century, Durkheim generalises from studies of the totem cults of Australia to conclude that pretty much all intellectual concepts, including scientific theories as well as notions of God and religion, can be examined as socially constructed phenomena. While sympathetic to the conclusion (having studied the history and philosophy of science in a past life) I was not terribly excited by the journey Durkheim takes to get there. His methodology straddles what today would be fairly clearly demarcated territory between philosophy and anthropology, and I found this mixture of concepts frustrating. More specifically, the Australian worshippers (particularly the women) are never given their own voice; we hear only what white anthropologists think of them. A pioneering work, perhaps, but I rather hope that things have moved on in the last century.
July 29, 2023
Even today this book is compelling and Durkheim is well worth reading.
Durkheim argues that the foundational and elemental constituents of the primal religions, the aboriginal Australians and the North American Indians’ totem clans are key for understanding all future superstitions and cults. Totems and clans are the building blocks for all that followed religiously and are key to understanding present-day religions. From the particular to the general to the universal and their self-realization of their spirit becoming aware of itself, at least Durkheim will lay out that case.
I use ‘primal’ only because Durkheim does and for me all superstitious beliefs seem to be the same, and for example, as Durkheim was talking about totems and banners (flags) superstitiously entrapping his primitives, I was reminded how my clan, the American people, rally around the flag and people lose their common-sense when somebody doesn’t rise for the national anthem and so on. All superstitions seem stupid to me.
Durkheim never mentions Hegel, but he clearly fits into Hegel’s paradigm. He does mention Kant at the very end of his story, and mentions that Kant divides the world into the synthetic and analytic, or similarly the moral from Reason, or the individual separate from their clan. Durkheim clearly understands the importance that the society has in shaping the individual and the individual’s Will is formed by forces beyond themselves. For Durkheim, force and power are elemental and need to be deconvolved from all other interactions in order to grasp the key characteristics explaining the phenomena.
Durkheim says will-to-the-divine is a will-to-power. I’ll say that a will-to-power is when one actively engages interpretation such that the individual harmonizes the outside world with themselves, and the search for the divine is just as fundamental as the will-to-exist for existing within a society, without others participating with us our world would atrophy away and we would be as Avicenna’s floating man without a sense of a self. Durkheim requires a ‘divine’, Nietzsche would not.
Durkheim quotes frequently from Frazier’s Golden Bough and harmonizes Frazier’s various religious approaches into how Durkheim perceives the foundational and elemental building blocks within his primitive religions. Freud clearly leveraged Durkheim when he fabricated a connection between primitive religions and neurotics in his book Totems and Taboos. Durkheim wisely stays away from psychoanalysis, both books were published within a year of each other.
Durkheim does predate some of the themes from Mary Douglas’s Purity and Danger. Similarly, Durkheim has an acknowledgement of order in a chaotic world determining how the world is constructed. Durkheim does falter when he sees the religious (moral) and the scientific (reason) as two separate orthogonal worlds (magisterial), but at least he never gets in to the mumbo-jumbo of psychoanalysis as Mary Douglas did.
There are a lot of big things that Durkheim gets right and are just as relevant today as when he first published this book. I think Durkheim is wrong in his conclusions, but how he gets there makes for a highly relevant book worth reading today. For example, Max Weber (frequently quoted in this book) does not while Durkheim gives the reader more than enough to satisfy.
Durkheim argues that the foundational and elemental constituents of the primal religions, the aboriginal Australians and the North American Indians’ totem clans are key for understanding all future superstitions and cults. Totems and clans are the building blocks for all that followed religiously and are key to understanding present-day religions. From the particular to the general to the universal and their self-realization of their spirit becoming aware of itself, at least Durkheim will lay out that case.
I use ‘primal’ only because Durkheim does and for me all superstitious beliefs seem to be the same, and for example, as Durkheim was talking about totems and banners (flags) superstitiously entrapping his primitives, I was reminded how my clan, the American people, rally around the flag and people lose their common-sense when somebody doesn’t rise for the national anthem and so on. All superstitions seem stupid to me.
Durkheim never mentions Hegel, but he clearly fits into Hegel’s paradigm. He does mention Kant at the very end of his story, and mentions that Kant divides the world into the synthetic and analytic, or similarly the moral from Reason, or the individual separate from their clan. Durkheim clearly understands the importance that the society has in shaping the individual and the individual’s Will is formed by forces beyond themselves. For Durkheim, force and power are elemental and need to be deconvolved from all other interactions in order to grasp the key characteristics explaining the phenomena.
Durkheim says will-to-the-divine is a will-to-power. I’ll say that a will-to-power is when one actively engages interpretation such that the individual harmonizes the outside world with themselves, and the search for the divine is just as fundamental as the will-to-exist for existing within a society, without others participating with us our world would atrophy away and we would be as Avicenna’s floating man without a sense of a self. Durkheim requires a ‘divine’, Nietzsche would not.
Durkheim quotes frequently from Frazier’s Golden Bough and harmonizes Frazier’s various religious approaches into how Durkheim perceives the foundational and elemental building blocks within his primitive religions. Freud clearly leveraged Durkheim when he fabricated a connection between primitive religions and neurotics in his book Totems and Taboos. Durkheim wisely stays away from psychoanalysis, both books were published within a year of each other.
Durkheim does predate some of the themes from Mary Douglas’s Purity and Danger. Similarly, Durkheim has an acknowledgement of order in a chaotic world determining how the world is constructed. Durkheim does falter when he sees the religious (moral) and the scientific (reason) as two separate orthogonal worlds (magisterial), but at least he never gets in to the mumbo-jumbo of psychoanalysis as Mary Douglas did.
There are a lot of big things that Durkheim gets right and are just as relevant today as when he first published this book. I think Durkheim is wrong in his conclusions, but how he gets there makes for a highly relevant book worth reading today. For example, Max Weber (frequently quoted in this book) does not while Durkheim gives the reader more than enough to satisfy.
March 30, 2018
Third time through this masterpiece. Durkheim shows, through a combination of research, rigorous thought and sociological imagination that the basis for humankind believing in religion is a belief in and understanding of mankind itself.
"If we have taken primitive religion as the subject of our research it is because it has seemed to us better adapted than any other to lead to an understanding of the religious nature of man, that is to say, to show us an essential and permanent aspect of humanity."
"A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden -- beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them."
The symbols through which this reality is expressed, of course, may seem absurd; but Durkheim insists that we must know how to go beneath the symbol, to uncover the reality which it represents, and which gives it its meaning. The most ambitious of Durkheim's claims is that the most basic categories of human thought have their origin in social experience with no Kantian a priori categories.
A brilliant book as much for its method than its conclusions.
"If we have taken primitive religion as the subject of our research it is because it has seemed to us better adapted than any other to lead to an understanding of the religious nature of man, that is to say, to show us an essential and permanent aspect of humanity."
"A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden -- beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them."
The symbols through which this reality is expressed, of course, may seem absurd; but Durkheim insists that we must know how to go beneath the symbol, to uncover the reality which it represents, and which gives it its meaning. The most ambitious of Durkheim's claims is that the most basic categories of human thought have their origin in social experience with no Kantian a priori categories.
A brilliant book as much for its method than its conclusions.
Read
September 5, 2010OK, I recognize that it's a classic of sociology, but Durkheim's methodology is wrong. It's not a method I disagree with, not a method I consider to be flawed, but just straight up wrong in more ways than I can count. What we get is a text that, despite its search for universality, is almost comically out of date. No wonder no one reads it anymore. Like Eliade, he searches for religious meaning through primitive (read: Westerners think it's a "timeless" culture) religious ritual, and thinks that we're all tragic and fallen and shit. Screw that.
With all of that said, I have to respect the man. Much like his contemporaries Freud and William James, he sketches out a beautiful argument with a truly open mind. Unfortunately, his starting point is so far off the mark that his argument amounts to little.
With all of that said, I have to respect the man. Much like his contemporaries Freud and William James, he sketches out a beautiful argument with a truly open mind. Unfortunately, his starting point is so far off the mark that his argument amounts to little.
October 17, 2010
To give one of the founders of my new discipline some credit, I can't imagine it was fun and games trying to provide a sociological theory of religion and a religious theory of society 100 years ago.
But, while I think some parts of the reasoning are sound, most of the facts upon which he bases his arguments are historically and archaeologically invalid, not to mention racist and sexist. If Durkheim had access to all of our current knowledge of the era circa 10,000-15,000 BC in the Near East, his conclusions may have been the same (or even amplified!), but his reasoning and analysis would have been radically different.
Further, he makes some outlandish conclusions for which he neither provides logical proofs nor attempts to do so.
Oh, the joys of reading sociological theory published in 1912! Never imagined myself yearning for Foucault.
But, while I think some parts of the reasoning are sound, most of the facts upon which he bases his arguments are historically and archaeologically invalid, not to mention racist and sexist. If Durkheim had access to all of our current knowledge of the era circa 10,000-15,000 BC in the Near East, his conclusions may have been the same (or even amplified!), but his reasoning and analysis would have been radically different.
Further, he makes some outlandish conclusions for which he neither provides logical proofs nor attempts to do so.
Oh, the joys of reading sociological theory published in 1912! Never imagined myself yearning for Foucault.
August 13, 2010
This book put so many pieces together for me and helped me make sense of life on a pretty personal level. The ideas he puts forth play a significant role in my general philosophy now, and I continue to think about this book in daily life years after reading it. I love Durkheim for this book, even with all its methodological flaws.
July 24, 2011
READ MAR 2010
Exhaustive treatment of the foundation of religious forms and practices. Not an easy read, but interesting. Best quote, "Really and truly human thought is not a primitive fact; it is the product of history; it is the ideal limit towards which we are constantly approaching, but which in all probability we shall never succeed in reaching" (p. 493).
Exhaustive treatment of the foundation of religious forms and practices. Not an easy read, but interesting. Best quote, "Really and truly human thought is not a primitive fact; it is the product of history; it is the ideal limit towards which we are constantly approaching, but which in all probability we shall never succeed in reaching" (p. 493).
July 2, 2013
One of the first and foremost anthropologists to really bring a sense of critical thinking into the field. Read a lot of works before Durkheim and they're all speculations based on what "seems obvious." Granted there's plenty of archaic ideas here (e.g., some cultures being more "advanced." Advancing to what?) Still, great milestone for anthropology as a systematic science/practice.
May 22, 2020
Can't bring myself to review this book - has nothing to do with the book. Interesting take on religion, especially the study of functions of religion in its most primitive appearances. I don't know how much of Durkheim's theses still hold today - perhaps one can bend them some to fit into an evolutionary framework.
Lovely read!
Lovely read!
October 5, 2023
bro didn’t even go to australia
July 13, 2019
Durkheim's grounding axiom is that groups arise naturally, and studying them and their dynamics is scientific (i.e. sociology). People, meanwhile, exist not only as individuals but also as groups. Religion, therefore, must serve a group need (perhaps for order) in addition to individual needs (perhaps for awe).
He distinguishes the sacred from the profane and suggests that rites are meant to control conduct and understanding of the sacred. Because magic and magicians can make similar claims, but are not religions, Durkheim adds that religions are used to form groups. Durkheim therefore defines a religion as: “a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden—beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.” Durkheim studies the Australian aborigines to learn how religious totems help to order groups.
It’s easy to criticize this book, which was published in 1912. Today, we are taught to resist generalization; because Durkheim is attempting to tease out general religious structures, his attempt will grate a contemporary reader’s preferences. He uses words like ‘primitive’ and ‘crude’ to describe anyone or anything not from Europe, and it’s difficult to read his condescending treatment of aboriginals. He uses Christian language (e.g. church, salvation) to describe the practices of groups that do not use these Christian terms to describe their practices. Readers will need to prepare for Eurocentrism either erasing or wearing away the unique characteristics of other cultures. Even if readers begin this book ready to look past its publication date, the irritation is not to be underestimated.
(Having said that, I often felt that there was another implied axiom: no one in Europe will be comfortable with treating Christianity as a system that serves group needs. To solve this problem, Durkheim studies a religion that isn’t Christianity and one that I suspect few Christians at the time cared very much about. Sometimes I couldn't help reading Elementary Forms as satire.)
It’s also easy to find originality and enduring insight in this work. Here’s Durkheim’s definition of religion once more: “a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden—beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.” It's worth noting that this is not a book about "God's teachings," and I further note that we now use something like this analysis to study groups all the time. Durkheim's definition is easily adapted to a variety of institutions we use to form groups if we start with a “system of beliefs and practices … which unite into one single moral community … all those who adhere to them.” How far removed from this definition are those commentators who observe that football is America's religion? In Sapiens, Harari argues that homo sapiens survived their rivals because of their ability to form groups around shared “fictions.”
I don’t hear people discussing this book very often. When I look for sociologist books on goodreads listopia, the top writers are economists and Malcolm Gladwell. Yes, Durkheim's anthropological analysis of the aborigines is grating, but we should think about Durkheim and group needs a little more. Durkheim’s key insight is that people organize into groups and they will not only need food but also organizing structures. Isn’t this what we obsess over more than anything else as we think about the "other," populism, and nationalism? How far removed from Durkheim's notions are we when we discuss working to expand our "circle of empathy?" When we look at online communities and how they isolate from one another, it occurs to me that we should return our attention to this study of how religion exists to form community.
A final note: Durkheim uses 'apostrophizes' -- not a word one encounters every day.
He distinguishes the sacred from the profane and suggests that rites are meant to control conduct and understanding of the sacred. Because magic and magicians can make similar claims, but are not religions, Durkheim adds that religions are used to form groups. Durkheim therefore defines a religion as: “a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden—beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.” Durkheim studies the Australian aborigines to learn how religious totems help to order groups.
It’s easy to criticize this book, which was published in 1912. Today, we are taught to resist generalization; because Durkheim is attempting to tease out general religious structures, his attempt will grate a contemporary reader’s preferences. He uses words like ‘primitive’ and ‘crude’ to describe anyone or anything not from Europe, and it’s difficult to read his condescending treatment of aboriginals. He uses Christian language (e.g. church, salvation) to describe the practices of groups that do not use these Christian terms to describe their practices. Readers will need to prepare for Eurocentrism either erasing or wearing away the unique characteristics of other cultures. Even if readers begin this book ready to look past its publication date, the irritation is not to be underestimated.
(Having said that, I often felt that there was another implied axiom: no one in Europe will be comfortable with treating Christianity as a system that serves group needs. To solve this problem, Durkheim studies a religion that isn’t Christianity and one that I suspect few Christians at the time cared very much about. Sometimes I couldn't help reading Elementary Forms as satire.)
It’s also easy to find originality and enduring insight in this work. Here’s Durkheim’s definition of religion once more: “a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden—beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.” It's worth noting that this is not a book about "God's teachings," and I further note that we now use something like this analysis to study groups all the time. Durkheim's definition is easily adapted to a variety of institutions we use to form groups if we start with a “system of beliefs and practices … which unite into one single moral community … all those who adhere to them.” How far removed from this definition are those commentators who observe that football is America's religion? In Sapiens, Harari argues that homo sapiens survived their rivals because of their ability to form groups around shared “fictions.”
I don’t hear people discussing this book very often. When I look for sociologist books on goodreads listopia, the top writers are economists and Malcolm Gladwell. Yes, Durkheim's anthropological analysis of the aborigines is grating, but we should think about Durkheim and group needs a little more. Durkheim’s key insight is that people organize into groups and they will not only need food but also organizing structures. Isn’t this what we obsess over more than anything else as we think about the "other," populism, and nationalism? How far removed from Durkheim's notions are we when we discuss working to expand our "circle of empathy?" When we look at online communities and how they isolate from one another, it occurs to me that we should return our attention to this study of how religion exists to form community.
A final note: Durkheim uses 'apostrophizes' -- not a word one encounters every day.
January 10, 2015
"Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse: Le système totémique en Australie" est clairement une grande oeuvre d'un grand penseur mais elle difficile a classer et a evaluer. Emile Durkheim est considere comme un pioniner de la sociologie mais il a eu une formation universitaire en philosophie et son style de raisoner ressemble beaucoup a son ami le philosophe Henri Bergson. Dans "Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse: Le système totémique en Australie" Durkheim nous livre une theorie sur la religion base sur des recherches effectuees par des ethnologues anglophones aupres des aborigines de l'Australie. Je suis tres mal a l'aise avec une theorie qui provient d'un savant qui n'a fait aucune recherche de terrain. Par contre le modele propose par Durkheim est tres puissant.
D'apres Durkheim la religion est a l'origine la pratique generalise dans une communaute de classer des choses dans deux categories: le sacre et le profane. Ce systeme permet aux membres de la collectivite a se recconnaitre comme etant des membres du meme groupe. La force religieuse est la force des membres anonymes de collectivite. Le but des rites religieux est de rappeller aux membres qu"ils sont membres de la collectivite et de leur transmetter de l'energie de la collectivite.
Au debut, les religions n'avait pas forcement de Dieu omniscient et la religion ne promettait pas une vie dans l'au-dela. La religion a ete seulement la collectivite. Les actes magiques sont venus apres le developpement de la religion. La doctrine d"un Dieu tout puisant qui offrait la compensation d'une vie eternelle au paradis pour les justes et qui menacait les pecheurs avec une vie eternelle en enfer est arrive tres tard dans le developpment de la religion.
D'apres Durkheim c'est la religion qui a cree la civilisation humaine et non la civilisation qui a cree la religion. Pourtant, au debut du vingtieme siecle la civilisation humaine etait tellement bien etabii que Durkheim croyait qu'elle n'avait peut-etre plus besoin de la religion. Dans ce scenario, la religion risquait de disparaitre.
"Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse: Le système totémique en Australie" est certainement tres riches en idees et nous eclaircit beaucoup sur les origines de la religion. Ce livre a sans doutes ses limites mais je ne suis pas helas en mesure de vous dire ou elles sont.
D'apres Durkheim la religion est a l'origine la pratique generalise dans une communaute de classer des choses dans deux categories: le sacre et le profane. Ce systeme permet aux membres de la collectivite a se recconnaitre comme etant des membres du meme groupe. La force religieuse est la force des membres anonymes de collectivite. Le but des rites religieux est de rappeller aux membres qu"ils sont membres de la collectivite et de leur transmetter de l'energie de la collectivite.
Au debut, les religions n'avait pas forcement de Dieu omniscient et la religion ne promettait pas une vie dans l'au-dela. La religion a ete seulement la collectivite. Les actes magiques sont venus apres le developpement de la religion. La doctrine d"un Dieu tout puisant qui offrait la compensation d'une vie eternelle au paradis pour les justes et qui menacait les pecheurs avec une vie eternelle en enfer est arrive tres tard dans le developpment de la religion.
D'apres Durkheim c'est la religion qui a cree la civilisation humaine et non la civilisation qui a cree la religion. Pourtant, au debut du vingtieme siecle la civilisation humaine etait tellement bien etabii que Durkheim croyait qu'elle n'avait peut-etre plus besoin de la religion. Dans ce scenario, la religion risquait de disparaitre.
"Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse: Le système totémique en Australie" est certainement tres riches en idees et nous eclaircit beaucoup sur les origines de la religion. Ce livre a sans doutes ses limites mais je ne suis pas helas en mesure de vous dire ou elles sont.
January 15, 2014
Emile Durkheim is often considered the father of sociology, and this is a fantastic look at his theory of the origins of religion as well as its function today. He looks at the Aborigine tribes in Australia as well as other examples from America and Asia, believing them to be the most primitive examples of religion available for study. As such, he hopes to derive the essence of religion in general from their religion, which he refers to as "totemism." What I find most interesting about his theory is that it revolves around the social categorization of the sacred (things set apart) and the profane (normal things). For him, this is the essence of religion. He addresses how gods and spiritual beings came to be perceived, but they are a mere side effect to the true function religion has previously and currently maintains. This particular edition (Oxford's World Classics) is extremely convenient in that it is abridged, cutting out about 25% of the original text, since it is often repetitive in its examples and case studies. Despite this, it still weighs in at about 340 pages, and it is no light read. While many critiques have emerged in regards to Durkheim's arguments and the ethnographies he cites (this was written in 1912, give him a break), this is still worth reading as a classic insight into the early days of the field of Comparative Religions.
August 31, 2016
As contemporary readers going through the arduously intellectual labor Durkheim has put together, we enjoy the benefits of being a later-comer rather than a pioneer, namely, the advantages of easily jumping off so much details of the terrains that Durkheim once trudges like an ant on the ground. It is based on this later-comer status that one comes to realize Durkheim's exceptional originality in thinking through all these matters. When he starts to talk about the social origins of a priori categories, he is really probing as deep as Kant into the problem of categories (completely not on the same level as concrete concepts), and compels us, i.e., whoever voluntarily to think with him, to ask with him, "where does the compulsory force that the a priori categories entail come from?" First-rate sociologist, and loyal disciple of Empirical Science, Durkheim offers us so much original insights into the "creative source" of the powers (I add this modifier so as to caution against some habitually cynical and skeptical reading of the term "power") of religious life. One must fail to appreciate Durkheim's true intelligence and profound sensitivity if one has not yet read this masterpiece.
November 3, 2013
Considered from the milieu in which he developed his ideas, he was hecka advanced for his time, or ours. Levi-Strauss and contemporary structuralism has its roots in Durkheim's work. Yes it is a laborious read. And it is fascinating in terms of the history of western consciousness. This work has earned its place as an undeniable milestone in the development of thought whether, or not one discovers the wisdom therein. And, if it had not been required reading, we would have missed the pleasure.
Compare to James' Variety of Religious Experience, or any of Radcliffe-Brown's studies in the social function of religion. We just don't value this kind of scholarship anymore. Sociology, Anthropology, and Psychology were intellectual equals for a time. Now, unless you teach a University level social science, one is lucky to bring forth any of Durkheim, or his intellectual progeny into an economically viable profession. Managed care psychotherapy to social work is more about contemporary politics than the quest for knowledge reflected in works like this.
Compare to James' Variety of Religious Experience, or any of Radcliffe-Brown's studies in the social function of religion. We just don't value this kind of scholarship anymore. Sociology, Anthropology, and Psychology were intellectual equals for a time. Now, unless you teach a University level social science, one is lucky to bring forth any of Durkheim, or his intellectual progeny into an economically viable profession. Managed care psychotherapy to social work is more about contemporary politics than the quest for knowledge reflected in works like this.
October 31, 2012
I can see how this was foundational, but Durkheim is a terrible writer. I'm not going to start in on his claims (their lack of foundation; the problems with, in my view, a universalist view of religion in general), except to say that if you're planning on reading this whole book to understand his ideas, do yourself a favor and read the introduction and the conclusion. A brief review of Emile's thinking on religious life by a scholar in the field will do you more good than slogging through this.
If you just can't help yourself and have to read this, don't get bogged down in the details. His writing is so twisted, repetitive, and self-referential that you're going to want to claw out your eyes. Again, a brief review of this will help you more than the book in getting what he's saying. My writing is the worse for having read this, I'm afraid.
If you just can't help yourself and have to read this, don't get bogged down in the details. His writing is so twisted, repetitive, and self-referential that you're going to want to claw out your eyes. Again, a brief review of this will help you more than the book in getting what he's saying. My writing is the worse for having read this, I'm afraid.
December 19, 2015
کتاب بسیار عالی و جذابی بود.
تصوری که بر اثر خوندنِ کتابهای درسی از دورکیم در ذهنِ دانشجویان شکل میگیره بنظرم با خوندن این کتاب از میان میره. تو این کتاب دورکیم نشون میده اصلا یه کارکردگرای سفتوسخت نیست و با روشهای یکسویهی پوزیتیویستی و آماری کار نمیکنه، بلکه چه بسا بهاندازهی وبر از «تفهم» و روشهای کیفیِ دیگه در تحلیل و نقد و بررسی پدیدهها استفاده میکنه.
همچنین بنظرم آقای باقر پرهام هم ترجمهی مفهوم و روانی از این کتاب ارائه داده.
خوندنِ کتاب «کارکردهای ذهنی در جوامع عقبمانده» از لوسین لوی-برول رو هم در کنار این کتاب به همه توصیه میکنم.
بنظرم این کتاب رو یکی از مهمترین کتابهای دورکیم باید بهشمار آورد. اینجا بطور مشخص تأثیر جامعه بر شکلگیری مقولات فاهمه رو بیان میکنه و از منظر «جامعهشناسی معرفت» هم کتابی کلاسیک میتونه بهشمار بیاد.
تصوری که بر اثر خوندنِ کتابهای درسی از دورکیم در ذهنِ دانشجویان شکل میگیره بنظرم با خوندن این کتاب از میان میره. تو این کتاب دورکیم نشون میده اصلا یه کارکردگرای سفتوسخت نیست و با روشهای یکسویهی پوزیتیویستی و آماری کار نمیکنه، بلکه چه بسا بهاندازهی وبر از «تفهم» و روشهای کیفیِ دیگه در تحلیل و نقد و بررسی پدیدهها استفاده میکنه.
همچنین بنظرم آقای باقر پرهام هم ترجمهی مفهوم و روانی از این کتاب ارائه داده.
خوندنِ کتاب «کارکردهای ذهنی در جوامع عقبمانده» از لوسین لوی-برول رو هم در کنار این کتاب به همه توصیه میکنم.
بنظرم این کتاب رو یکی از مهمترین کتابهای دورکیم باید بهشمار آورد. اینجا بطور مشخص تأثیر جامعه بر شکلگیری مقولات فاهمه رو بیان میکنه و از منظر «جامعهشناسی معرفت» هم کتابی کلاسیک میتونه بهشمار بیاد.
August 7, 2007
Hahah, yes, I'm adding a book I had to read from soc. I was just thinking about it recently when I was discussing with someone how "Anthropology" seems to be the study of brown people while "Sociology" is the study of white people. (think about it...)
I have to admit that I was offended by Durkheims evaluations and theories about "elementary" forms of religion based on aboriginal and Native American cultures. Maybe I'm just too sensitive to issues of race and ethnicity. ps. Durkheim never actually saw any of the aboriginal tribes that he goes on and on about.
I have to admit that I was offended by Durkheims evaluations and theories about "elementary" forms of religion based on aboriginal and Native American cultures. Maybe I'm just too sensitive to issues of race and ethnicity. ps. Durkheim never actually saw any of the aboriginal tribes that he goes on and on about.
Read
January 2, 2023اين كه توليد مفهوم خدا در ذهن بشر برآمده از تأثيرات جامعه بر آن است، حرف بسيار عجيب و جالبي بود. اين كتاب را مي توان خواند، و مي توان در آن غرق شد. شايد كمرنگ ترين مضمون اين كتاب، پاسخ به اين سوال باشد: "جامعه چيست، و چرا شناختن آن علم است". دارم فكر مي كنم كه چگونه ذهن تحليل گر انسان مي تواند به اين جايي كه ذهن ام��ل دوركيم رسيده، برسد
November 8, 2009
I learned so much from this 1912 classic sociological treatment of religion; as the excellent introduction explains, some of the data Durkheim used - about Australian totemism - is no longer considered reliable, but his analysis of the nature and the meaning of religious belief and practice is still illuminating.
January 31, 2009
Critically important book in the history of sociology and religious studies. Sure, there are lots of errors and misconceptions to critique, but it is mind boggling to think of the innovations Durkheim introduced into thinking about social interactions in a religious context.
January 18, 2010
I just love how all Durkheim can be applied to everything ever ever. Ok exaggeration. But really, how does his theory on totemism NOT apply to modern society in so many more ways than just religion...
February 20, 2012
Emile Durkheim was basically gifted in understanding the cause of an event not basically putting it on the individual but first trying to understand why and how society affects it
April 18, 2022
I am very glad to at last put down this book, which I have been reading for over three months, because it is nearly impenetrable and extremely boring; on the other hand, I am very glad to have read it, because it is also extremely fascinating and fertile and even life-affirming/optimistic. Although its nominal aim is to explain the origins of religion, its real object is to affirm the value of sociology, almost to make it the queen of the sciences.
It is so tedious, partly perhaps because of a bad translation or simple bad, impenetrable writing, but also because the method is pretty terrible. First Durkheim sets out some of the theories of his predecessors and contemporaries on the origins of religion, and in the manner of a philosopher, attacks and refutes them. This part sucks because the theories are so patently ludicrous, absurd just-so stories straight out of high school stoner thought patterns -- whoa, man, what if we got the idea of the soul because, like, we dream sometimes? and in dreams we go somewhere else?? and then we wake up and we're like, dude, I was just somewhere else and now I'm back here again, wtf is going on! I must be some kind of immaterial being! -- and it's almost incomprehensible that anyone would ever take them seriously. Then he sets out to examine what he calls the "most primitive" form of religion, the totemism of indigenous Australians, who, he says, live at the lowest level of civilization ever seen, and therefore closest to the most ancient beginnings of Man, etc. This part sucks for many obvious reasons. The idea that anyone living in the present is somehow the same as someone living 100,000 years ago has no basis, as silly as the idea that any animal is "less evolved" than another; time has passed the exact same amount for everyone. The idea that Australian societies are "primitive" and "simple" is plainly racist and also, frankly refuted by the very contents of the book, which explains in great detail the almost incomprehensibly complicated systems of kinship that Durkheim's sources (he never went to Australia, of course) documented. As in the boringest parts of The Golden Bough there is inexhaustible detail which you can't possibly take for granted as accurate, coming from 19th Century colonialist anthropologists whose work, even if done with the best of intent and practice of the time, must by now be obsolete.
So what's the good part? It's the part that doesn't depend on any of this silliness, Durkheim's main theme and justification of sociology: that religion, and in fact almost every part of human thought, is the product of society. (I kept thinking of Borges: "The composition of vast books is a laborious and impoverishing extravagance. To go on for five hundred pages developing an idea whose perfect oral exposition is possible in a few minutes!") God, if I may use that word to simplify Durkheim's argument, is not imaginary: it is simply another name, a sort of concretization, of society. Because society is real, and social pressures are real; the invigoration we feel when we come together in society (for example, in church) is real, and the strictures of morality are the real, demonstrable, though not material, effect of society on the individual. There really is something, which is not you, and immaterial, but absolutely real, which has created you -- because a human outside of society is no human, Durkheim would say a mere animal, but I would say not even an animal but a sort of biological object -- and which comforts and supports you and makes life possible for you, and which demands your obedience to its moral order: it is society. It is undeniable that it has a power to compel, despite the fact that it can't be measured by any instrument or directly perceived by any of our senses.
It is the fact that thinkers have always taken the individual in isolation, since Decartes and Daniel Defoe, as the basis for thinking about things, that we have not grasped this, says Durkheim, and I have been thinking so many similar thoughts about individualism, but still this book really pushed me farther in that direction. And if it was a little disheartening to have it confirmed to my satisfaction that solitary religion is no religion at all -- that the essence of religion is getting togeher with other people and feeling the powerful influence of the group -- it was on the other hand good to be reminded that art and parties and funerals etc are, deep down, also religious, all the same kind of thing. And that the experience of communion with one's fellow man is that religious experience which, as Jung says, is much more important than 'faith'.
It is so tedious, partly perhaps because of a bad translation or simple bad, impenetrable writing, but also because the method is pretty terrible. First Durkheim sets out some of the theories of his predecessors and contemporaries on the origins of religion, and in the manner of a philosopher, attacks and refutes them. This part sucks because the theories are so patently ludicrous, absurd just-so stories straight out of high school stoner thought patterns -- whoa, man, what if we got the idea of the soul because, like, we dream sometimes? and in dreams we go somewhere else?? and then we wake up and we're like, dude, I was just somewhere else and now I'm back here again, wtf is going on! I must be some kind of immaterial being! -- and it's almost incomprehensible that anyone would ever take them seriously. Then he sets out to examine what he calls the "most primitive" form of religion, the totemism of indigenous Australians, who, he says, live at the lowest level of civilization ever seen, and therefore closest to the most ancient beginnings of Man, etc. This part sucks for many obvious reasons. The idea that anyone living in the present is somehow the same as someone living 100,000 years ago has no basis, as silly as the idea that any animal is "less evolved" than another; time has passed the exact same amount for everyone. The idea that Australian societies are "primitive" and "simple" is plainly racist and also, frankly refuted by the very contents of the book, which explains in great detail the almost incomprehensibly complicated systems of kinship that Durkheim's sources (he never went to Australia, of course) documented. As in the boringest parts of The Golden Bough there is inexhaustible detail which you can't possibly take for granted as accurate, coming from 19th Century colonialist anthropologists whose work, even if done with the best of intent and practice of the time, must by now be obsolete.
So what's the good part? It's the part that doesn't depend on any of this silliness, Durkheim's main theme and justification of sociology: that religion, and in fact almost every part of human thought, is the product of society. (I kept thinking of Borges: "The composition of vast books is a laborious and impoverishing extravagance. To go on for five hundred pages developing an idea whose perfect oral exposition is possible in a few minutes!") God, if I may use that word to simplify Durkheim's argument, is not imaginary: it is simply another name, a sort of concretization, of society. Because society is real, and social pressures are real; the invigoration we feel when we come together in society (for example, in church) is real, and the strictures of morality are the real, demonstrable, though not material, effect of society on the individual. There really is something, which is not you, and immaterial, but absolutely real, which has created you -- because a human outside of society is no human, Durkheim would say a mere animal, but I would say not even an animal but a sort of biological object -- and which comforts and supports you and makes life possible for you, and which demands your obedience to its moral order: it is society. It is undeniable that it has a power to compel, despite the fact that it can't be measured by any instrument or directly perceived by any of our senses.
It is the fact that thinkers have always taken the individual in isolation, since Decartes and Daniel Defoe, as the basis for thinking about things, that we have not grasped this, says Durkheim, and I have been thinking so many similar thoughts about individualism, but still this book really pushed me farther in that direction. And if it was a little disheartening to have it confirmed to my satisfaction that solitary religion is no religion at all -- that the essence of religion is getting togeher with other people and feeling the powerful influence of the group -- it was on the other hand good to be reminded that art and parties and funerals etc are, deep down, also religious, all the same kind of thing. And that the experience of communion with one's fellow man is that religious experience which, as Jung says, is much more important than 'faith'.
March 14, 2019
The sociology in this text is remarkable and well-worth studying, especially for understanding the cliched yet true statement that humans are fundamentally religious creatures. Read as part of my thesis, so I ignored the enormous anthropoligical discussion throughout.
"A philosophy may well be elaborated in the silence of the interior imagination, but not so a faith. For before all else, a faith is warmth, life, enthusiasm, the exaltation of the whole mental life, the raising of the individual above himself. Now how could he add to the energies which he possesses without going outside himself? How could he surpass himself merely by his own forces? The only source of life at which we can morally reanimate ourselves is that formed by the society of our fellow beings; the only moral forces with which we can sustain and increase our own are those which we get from others." (pp. 473)
"A philosophy may well be elaborated in the silence of the interior imagination, but not so a faith. For before all else, a faith is warmth, life, enthusiasm, the exaltation of the whole mental life, the raising of the individual above himself. Now how could he add to the energies which he possesses without going outside himself? How could he surpass himself merely by his own forces? The only source of life at which we can morally reanimate ourselves is that formed by the society of our fellow beings; the only moral forces with which we can sustain and increase our own are those which we get from others." (pp. 473)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 156 reviews