Social Structure and the Absent Center: An Alternative to New Sociologies of Religion
The new sociology of religion (Bellah, Berger, Luckmann, Fenn, among others) has made little progress because of its failure to consider the metatheoretical aspect of its various sociological proposals. There are, metatheoretically, two classic problems: the tension between the personal and the soci...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
[publisher not identified]
1975
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| In: |
Sociological analysis
Year: 1975, Volume: 36, Issue: 2, Pages: 95-107 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The new sociology of religion (Bellah, Berger, Luckmann, Fenn, among others) has made little progress because of its failure to consider the metatheoretical aspect of its various sociological proposals. There are, metatheoretically, two classic problems: the tension between the personal and the social structural dimensions of social action and the problem of meaning. The new sociologists of religion share an ambivalence with respect to social structure, a tendency to reduce religion to the personal level, and an uncritical assumption that religion must have to do with meaning as a central feature of social behavior. The article draws upon recent French semiotics as a metatheoretical alternative in which one can see a social theory that accounts positively for social structures, without requiring meaningfulness as a requirement of religious efficacy. |
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| ISSN: | 2325-7873 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Sociological analysis
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2307/3710473 |