Les Formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse
- Langue:
- anglais
- Traduction:
- J. W. Swain
- État:
- Œuvre complète
- Paternité:
- Écrite par l'auteur
- État du texte:
- Texte propre
- Étendue:
- ~270 000 mots · 1 285 passages
Citer cette œuvre
- APAÉmile Durkheim. (n.d.). Les Formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/fr/works/emile-durkheim/the-elementary-forms-of-the-religious-life
- MLAÉmile Durkheim. "Les Formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/fr/works/emile-durkheim/the-elementary-forms-of-the-religious-life.
- ChicagoÉmile Durkheim. Les Formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/fr/works/emile-durkheim/the-elementary-forms-of-the-religious-life.
De quoi il s'agit
Le livre où Durkheim cherche la forme la plus simple de religion pour les comprendre toutes, et conclut que ce qu'une société adore, sans le savoir, c'est elle-même.
Contexte et histoire
Paru en 1912. Il prend pour cas élémentaire le totémisme des peuples aborigènes d'Australie, et une précision honnête s'impose : Durkheim n'y est jamais allé. Il travaille sur des ethnographies d'autrui, et ce matériau a été fort contesté depuis, tant pour sa qualité que pour le postulat selon lequel ces sociétés seraient « élémentaires ». L'argument sociologique — le sacré comme force collective, le rite comme ce qui l'entretient — a bien mieux tenu que le matériau sur lequel il fut bâti.
Contexte éditorial, non une source citable : contrairement aux passages de l'œuvre, ces données ne peuvent pas être vérifiées dans le corpus.
SUBJECT OF OUR STUDY: RELIGIOUS SOCIOLOGY AND THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE In this book we propose to study the most primitive and simple religion which is actually known, to make an analysis of it, and to attempt an explanation of it. A religious system may be said to be the most primitive which we can observe when it fulfils the two following conditions: in the first place, when it is found in a society whose organization is surpassed by no others in simplicity;[1] and secondly, when it is possible to explain it without making use of any element borrowed from a previous religion. We shall set ourselves to describe the organization of this system with all the exactness and fidelity that an ethnographer or an historian could give it. But our task will not be limited to that: sociology raises other problems than history or ethnography. It does not seek to know the passed forms of civilization with the sole end of knowing them and reconstructing them. But rather, like every positive science, it has as its object the explanation of some actual reality which is near to us, and which consequently is capable of affecting our ideas and our acts: this reality is man, and more precisely, the man of to-day, for there is nothing which we are more interested in knowing. Then we are not going to study a very archaic religion simply for the pleasure of telling its peculiarities and its singularities. If we have taken it 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.