The Elementary Forms of Religious Life

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The quintessential sociolological classic. - Rated
Durkheim's last major work contains discussions of, in their most highly developed forms, the main problems that consumed Durkheim at various points in his intellectual career; the problem of solidarity in an increasingly individualistic society, the sources and nature of the power of moral authority, his desire to cement sociology as a science, and his quest to expose the foundations and practical implications of social and scientific knowledge.

Firstly, Durkheim convincingly argues that religious phenomena is the symbolic arrangement by which society represents itself to its members and awakens the individual sentiments that account for the members relationship to that society. The last section of the work (Book III) contains Durkheim's symbolic theory regarding the resacralization of social life through the "collective ritual" of religious ceremony. The salience of this argument has led many Sociologists to return to Durkheim to try and explain where this symbolic "collective effervescence" might come from when the social conditions are those of unfamiliarity and differentiation; where society is characterized by the fragmentation of class, occupation, ethnic group, age, region and so on.

Implicit within the whole discussion is Durkheim's controversial theory of knowledge, in which he drives a middle ground between on the one hand, Kantian apiorism, which held that knowledge is inherant in the human intellect itself; and on the other, Humean empiricism, which attributed the acquisition of knowledge to human individual experience. Durkheim contests that religious thought is the origin of scientific thought, and that the former proceeds to the latter in a direct line of continuity. Supplementary to the main thesis is an insightful and perceptive introduction from translater Karen E. Field, in which she manages to significantly contribute to an already well-worn debate amidst the backdrop of her seductive and witty writing style. A compelling read from start to finish, social theorists who do not appreciate the quality of this perrennial classic are simply misguided - this master work deserves to be read and re-read.