The Elementary Forms of Religious Life

Émile Durkheim

Oxford University Press, 2001 - Social Science - 358 pages

'If religion generated everything that is essential in society, this is because the idea of society is the soul of religion.' In The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912), Emile Durkheim set himself the task of discovering the enduring source of human social identity. He investigated what he considered to be the simplest form of documented religion - totemism among the Aborigines of Australia. Aboriginal religionwas an avenue 'to yield an understanding of the religious nature of man, by showing us an essential and permanent aspect of humanity'. The need and capacity of men and women to relate socially lies at the heart of Durkheim's exploration, in which religion embodies the beliefs that shape our moraluniverse. The Elementary Forms has been applauded and debated by sociologists, anthropologists, ethnographers, philosophers, and theologians, and continues to speak to new generations about the origin and nature of religion and society. This new, lightly abridged edition provides an excellent introductionto Durkheim's ideas.

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In The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912), Emile Durkheim sets himself the task of discovering the enduring source of human social identity. He investigates what he considered to be the ...

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"religion is the soul of society" definition of religion - pg. xxi, 13, 46

Contents

• A Definition of the Religious Phenomenon and of Religion: 25
• The Leading Conceptions of Elementary Religion: 47
• The Leading Conceptions of Elementary Religion: 63
• Totemism as Elementary Religion: 76
• Central Totemic Beliefs: 87
• Central Totemic Beliefs: 101
• Central Totemic Beliefs: 109
• Central Totemic Beliefs: 121
• The Origins of These Beliefs: 140
• The Origins of These Beliefs: 153
• The Notion of Soul: 183
• t The Notion of Spirits and Gods: 203
• The Negative Cult and its Functions: 221
• The Positive Cult: 243
• The Positive Cult: 261
• The Positive Cult: 276
• Piacular Rites and the Ambiguity of the Notion of: 289
• Select List of Anthropologists and Ethnologists: 344

About the author

Carol Cosman has translated works by Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Balzac and Yasmina Reza Mark Cladis is the author of A Communitarian Defense of Liberalim: Emile Durkheim and Contemporary Social Theory (Stanford, 1992) and editor of Durkheim and Foucault: Perspectives on Education and Punishment (1999).

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Elementary Forms of Religious Life; Oxford world's classics; Social theory
• Author: Émile Durkheim
• Editors: Mark Sydney Cladis, Associate Professor and Chair Department of Religion Mark S Cladis
• Translated by: Carol Cosman
• Contributor: Mark Sydney Cladis
• Edition: abridged, illustrated
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2001
• ISBN: 0192832557, 9780192832559
• Length: 358 pages
• Subjects: Social Science / Sociology / General; Social Science / Sociology of Religion