Analyse of Durkheim's The Elementary Forms of Religious life (1912)

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In The Elementary Forms of Religious life Durkheim tries to study the origin of religion as a subject That is to say that a phenomenon can be understood using rational methods, deducing things based on experience. In his study, Durkheim's first point characterizes a religion of any kind through a fundamental differentiation between the two categories that exclude each other namely the Sacred and the Profane. Therefore it becomes necessary to define the sacred. As for the definition of the profane, assuming that these two categories are sufficient to include all that is and will ever be, by defining the Sacred, Durkheim provides a definition for profane. According to Durkheim the sacred can't be reduced to the gods or God.

Extraits

[...] ] The division of the world into two domains, one containing all that is sacred and the other all that is profane.” 2 : The Elementary Forms of Religious life p.35 rock, a tree, [ . ] anything can be sacred. [ . ] A rite can be sacred, indeed there is no rite that does not have it to some degree” 3 : The Elementary Forms of Religious life p “Subordination of one thing to another is not enough to make one sacred and the other not.” 4 : The Elementary Forms of Religious life p nothing but their heterogeneity is left to define the relation between the sacred and the profane.” 5 : The Elementary Forms of Religious life Introduction p : The Elementary Forms of Religious life p.191 other words, totemism is not a religion of certain animals certain men or certain images” 7 : The Elementary Forms of Religious life p.192 “they behave like real forces. [...]

[...] Because it influences behaviors of human and animals, Durkheim calls it a force(7). A man's success is determined by the amount of mana he has and this is why a leader or an orator whose ideas are welcomed by the clan is believed to be full of mana. We can make a parallel here between the concept of mana and the idea that the sacred lies in the social. This force that influences everything can be assimilated with the power of mass phenomena for it a feeling the crowd gets that allows effervescence both when Durkheim writes and during the festival in the Native American tribe or the Australian clan. [...]

[...] The question of Durkheim's relevance today is important because it questions our own sense of the sacred. It is obvious that Durkheim was a man of the state, he was a man of the III rd Republic, the Republic that failed to avoid the two World Wars. Against Durkheim's view of the social we see Deleuze and the assumption that institutions based on social binding keep the individual from becoming accomplished. May 1968 is the affirmation that society is not to be put in a transcendental category because all there is is existence of the individual (and it is immanent). [...]

[...] Analyse of Durkheim's The Elementary Forms of Religious life (1912) Analyse of Durkheim's The Elementary Forms of Religious life (1912) What is Durkheim's definition of the sacred ? In The Elementary Forms of Religious life Durkheim tries to study the origin of religion as a thin. That is to say a phenomenon that can be understood using rational methods, deducing things based on experience. In his study, Durkheim's first point is that what characterizes a religion of any kind is a fundamental differentiation between two categories that exclude each another : the Sacred and the Profane(1). [...]

[...] There is no point in arguing about the existence of God because no one can know the answer and base a demonstration on facts, we can't imagine an experience that would prove or disprove God in the sense that Karl Popper intended. What we can study is the effect of religion on society and we can find that the two things are related. In the end of the XVIII th century the philosophy of the Lumière opposed religion and reason as two incompatible ideas. Durkheim says that in fact, another religion was created, worshiping reason instead of God but the main effect was the same(10) That is to say it created collective representation and effervescence. [...]