SOCIOL 3A03 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Totem, Evolutionism, Animal Worship

• School: McMaster University
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOCIOL 3A03
• Professor: Cyril Levitt

Document Summary

Elementary forms of religious life emile durkheim. He believed there wasn"t enough evidence to prove human evolution/development. As social scientists he said we have to focus on specific groups and how they are organized with all the empirical data provided for us: durkheim was steeped in this form of evolutionism. All of a sudden this link between progress and evolution was broken with world conflict. Simple and complex religions there are no simple societies or languages bois argued this. Durkheim thought it was necessary to study the elementary forms of religious life (the building blocks) in simple societies: durkheim believed that in the higher religions, in advanced societies, that too many heterogeneous elements were in play. We would be able to see more clearly where these fundamental building blocks of religious life really were in more simple societies. Indigenous people of australia, he found evidence to tease out what these elementary forms of religious life were really about.