Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
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Vol. 19 No. 3
pp. 127135
Explanation or Exegesis:
Exhuming Durkheims
Epistemology
DOUG MARSHALL
Anne Warfield Rawls, Epistemology and Practice: Durkheims Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2005. ISBN 0-521-65145-X, xxi + 353 pp. 50.00, $80.00.
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as whole, interior and emotional events, outside of sense perception, and thus
bypass the Humean problem of extracting abstract categories from particular
perceptions. This experience of moral force then begets empirically valid ideas
of causality (integral to the experience of force), of categorization (i.e. the
sacred vs. the profane), and of the rest of the categories. Second, such effects
are socially produced and jointly experienced by all participants in a given
ritual (or apparently any ritual), thereby insuring compatibility and communicability of the categories and concepts derived from them.
We can evaluate the work on at least two dimensions: historical and theoretical. On the historical dimension she is mostly successful, assembling a
convincing case for the largely overlooked centrality of epistemology to the
Elementary Forms, as evidenced both by Durkheims own assertions, and by
the structure and organization of the book itself. In this, she recovers for
history a different and clearer picture of the intentions and reasoning behind
a sociological classic. Durkheims ambitions included not only the construction of an independent basis for sociology, but also, like other founders, a
grander project of reinventing philosophy as a social science (27) by providing social solutions to some of its most intractable problems.
My only reservations about Rawlss historical case are quantitative, in that
I fear that the boldest of her claims about the primacy of epistemology in the
Elementary Forms e.g. It is only because of the role that Durkheim believes
religion . . . plays in the development of human reason that he has explored
it (34) is stronger than the evidence supports. The frequent recurrence of
religious themes throughout Durkheims life and work strongly suggests that
it is a consistent concern for him, worthy of, and in need of, explanation in
and of itself. Moreover, while epistemology is clearly a central theme, and
even formative to the book, the argument is just too easily overlooked to
plausibly be the theme. Even granting the several reasons she offers to
account for its latency, the fact remains that the Elementary Forms is singularly poorly designed to do what Rawls claims Durkheim is trying to do, but
is very effective at conveying the social-origins-of-religion thesis that has
long been attributed to it. It is significant that when, a few years after the
publication of the book, Durkheim weighed in to correct common misunderstandings of the work, the topic of the article was dualism, not epistemology. Moreover, all he has to say here about the grand epistemology Rawls
uncovers is this: We have even found a basis for conjecturing that the
fundamental and lofty concepts we call categories are formed on the model
of social phenomena (Durkheim, 1964: 338; emphasis added). Rawls has
successfully demonstrated that the epistemic elements of Elementary Forms
are by no means an afterthought, as many have assumed, but nor are they its
raison dtre. The mystery she evokes but does not solve is that of how and
why such an originally central theme becomes relegated to mere conjecture
in the authors own eyes.
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derided by the works first critics remain. To wit, Durkheim claims both that
categories result from social experience and that social experience is only
possible once categories are formed. How then does either ever arise?
Likewise, if, as he claims, religious ritual is necessary to produce reason, how
does one explain the occurrence of ritual in the first place given that, as far
as we know, no non-reasoning species engages in it? The response to such
criticism is almost as unsatisfying as the original circularity. Early on,
Durkheim dismisses the extant alternatives to his explanation by saying that
the categories cannot be a priori because they vary too much from place to
place, but individual empiricism cannot explain them because they are much
more constant than generalization would allow for. That is, only the social
solution provides just the right amount of consistency. Rawls follows
Durkheims lead by invoking his dualism to posit that animals instinctively
possess just the right amount of knowledge about the categories to make
possible the ritual practices that produce their valid counterparts. Such arguments raise serious operationalization problems that may defy clear falsification, considerably reduce the explanatory scope of the model, and are less
parsimonious than alternatives which see the valid, human versions of the
categories as continuous with their invalid, animal antecedents, and thus
amenable to unitary explanation.
Meanwhile, the argument also retains the kind of teleological reasoning,
with its attendant ontological and other problems, that has long plagued
Durkheim. Despite a nod towards a defensible interpretation of function as
a matter of selective retention, Rawlss account makes frequent recourse to
claims that something will happen because it is necessary that it happen in
order for society to continue (285) or is a fundamental social need that lies
beneath religious practice and dictates that the categories must, and therefore
will, be generated (38). Equally questionable reasoning appears in Durkheims
conclusion wherein he introduces an elusive idea of compatibility in arguing
that because the categories are primarily to be utilized in social contexts, they
must also have a social origin, because otherwise they would not be suited
to that purpose.
My high regard for Durkheim inclines me to believe that he was not blind
to such weaknesses, and I suspect that this awareness is partly responsible
for the latency of the epistemology recognizing that the fruits of his labor
were a weak argument about epistemology but a powerful theory of religion,
perhaps he chose to frame the work as more the latter than the former by
simply leaving the epistemological elements unemphasized, and by leaving
its general reception as a theory of religion uncorrected.
But this is speculative, and quarreling with Durkheims logic is a moot
point. While arguably a valid sociological question as Durkheim understood
it in his day, the problem of epistemological validity is no more compelling
today than is his proposed solution. From an empirical perspective, we know
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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
DOUG MARSHALL is an assistant professor of Sociology at the University of
South Alabama. His work lies at the intersection of sociological theory and
social psychology, with applications to the domains of religion and rationality. He is currently revising his dissertation on the socio-structual determinants of rationality for publication with Lexington Books.
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