ANTH 3348 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Altruistic Suicide, Social Fact, Totem

• School: University of Houston
• Department: Anthropology
• Course: ANTH 3348
• Professor: Rasmussen Susan

Document Summary

Durkheim: the social fact: some aspect of human behavior that must be defined by reference to other social fact. Example: attributing crime to socioeconomic status, not to something like mental illness. Collective conscience and collective representation: durkheim argues that religion functions as a representation of society. Sacred v. profane: sacred: items or beings on a higher state of meaning or importance, profane: opposite of the second. Durkheim"s discussion of magic: magic is individual, it is not unifying like religion according to durkheim. Frazer"s system: imitative and contagious magic => magic => religion => science.