Warum Émile Durkheim den Individualismus der arbeitsteiligen Gesellschaft religionsgeschichtlich einordnete
Durkheim is often regarded as a social scientist completely submitting the individual to the collective. The article points to a line in Durkheim's thinking that contradicts this interpretation. When Durkheim visited German universities in 1886, he was impressed by the philosopher Wilhelm Wundt...
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Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | German |
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Published: |
Diagonal-Verlag
2012
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In: |
Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft
Year: 1996, Volume: 4, Issue: 2, Pages: 113-134 |
Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) |
Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
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Summary: | Durkheim is often regarded as a social scientist completely submitting the individual to the collective. The article points to a line in Durkheim's thinking that contradicts this interpretation. When Durkheim visited German universities in 1886, he was impressed by the philosopher Wilhelm Wundt in Leipzig. Wundt had developed a method explaining ethics not by the conscience of the individual but by observing social actions. Durkheim consented to his approach and developed it in his own work further. He put special emphasis on the phenomenon of individualism. An essential element of it, he found, was the autonomy of the individual with regard to the collective. In his view it entitled the contemporary intellectuals in the Dreyfus-affair siding against the state. For an explanation of this autonomy Durkheim turned to the history of religions. He found it first in the ethics of Christianity, later in the Totemism of primitive religion. The totem did not only embody the social cohesion of a group. It also gave rise to the idea of the soul and prepared the ground for moral autonomy of the individual. |
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ISSN: | 2194-508X |
Contains: | In: Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1515/0025.113 |