The elementary forms of religious life (1912) Emile Durkheim The elementary forms of religious life (1912)

Religion & society The fundamental categories of thought, and consequently of science, are based on religion If religion has given birth to all that is essential in society, it is because the idea of society is the soul of religion

A functionalist theory of religion Theory concerns the functional role of religion in society The importance of ED's novel understanding of religion is that it leads to a clarification of the nature of the continuity between the traditional forms of society and the modern "In order to understand these new forms, one must connect them with religious phenomena properly speaking"

Theory of religion based on study of one of simplest, most primitive religions Australian totemism  the existence of supernatural divinities is not essential to religion there are systems of belief and practices which we should quite properly call religious, but where gods and spirits are absent or are of minor importance

What is religious belief cannot be defined with regard to the content of ideas religion presuppose a classification of all things known to men, real and ideal, into two classes, two distinct kinds: the sacred and profane the character of religious thought relies on the notion of dichotomy itself

religion always involves prescribed ritual practices & An institutional form A religion is never simply a set of beliefs; it always also involves prescribed ritual practices and a definite institutional form There is no religion which does not have a church, although the form which this assumes varies widely Church refers to the existence of a regularized ceremonial organization pertaining to a definite group of worshippers it does not imply that there is necessarily a specialized priesthood

Rituals & symbols The communal function of religion is carried out through processes of ritualization and symbolization Rituals & symbols reinforce shared values and beliefs ritual: a formalized mode of behavior in which the members of a community regularly engage symbol: a thing that represents or stands for something else

Durkheim’s definition of religion religion: a unified (solidaire) 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 equation of society and the sacred must not be misunderstood ED does not argue that religion creates society this would lead to a misinterpretation of his theory as idealism By contrast, ED says religion is the expression of the self-creation, the autonomous development, of human society

collective representations [GORDON MARSHALL © A Dictionary of Sociology, Oxford University Press 1998] collective representations the ideas, beliefs, and values elaborated by a collectivity, and which are not reducible to individual constituents the sources of social solidarity created through the intense interaction of religious rituals, and being richer than individual activities they come to be autonomous of the group from which they emerged collective representations help to order and make sense of the world, but they also express, symbolize and interpret social relationships

Collective representations as social facts The concept supersedes Durkheim’s earlier notion of collective conscience, since collective representations come to inhibit and stimulate social action Their force or authority comes from their being within all of us and yet external to the individual Assembly of an intense kind generates collective representations, which then survive the disintegration of this higher collective life as sacred and therefore morally coercive beliefs, values, and symbols  

Metatheoretical Map Nonrational Anomie Collective conscience Collective representations Sacred and profane Social solidarity Mechanical solidarity Organic solidarity ORDER Collective Individual Division of labor A C T I O N Rational