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Abstract What was the nature of the ‘revelation’ and of the appreciation of William Robertson Smith that, in 1907, Émile Durkheim dated to 1895? This article tracks new developments in his thought after 1895, including an emphasis on creative effervescence. But there was also continuity, involving a search for origins that used the ethnology of a living culture to identify early human socioreligious life with totemism in Australia. It is this continuity, at the core of his thought after 1895, which helps to bring out the nature of his ‘revelation’ and of his homage to Robertson Smith. It also highlights a problem with his start from an already complex Australian world, yet without a suitable evolutionary perspective available to him. However, a modern re-reading can reinstate Durkheim's interest in origins, in a story of hominin/human evolution over millions of years.

Thorough and wide-ranging examination of the science of morals, reviving and defending the tradition of a scientific approach to ethics. Engages with recent debates on modernism and morality, demonstrating the contemporary relevance of Durkheim's ideas. This book is intended for social and political theory, philosophy of science and Durkheimian studies within sociology, philosophy and politics.

Miller presents an obituary for William Stuart Frederick Pickering, an Anglican priest who died on May 23, 2016 in Coton, Cambridge. Pickering was affectionately known to family, friends and colleagues combined an Anglican priest with an equally strong devotion to scholarship in his chosen fields of the sociology of religion and of Durkheimian studies.

This is the first collection of essays to be published on Durkheim's masterpiece The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. It represents the work of the most important international Durkheim scholars from the fields of anthropology, philosophy and sociology. The essays focus on key topics including:* the method Durkheim adopted in his study* the role of ritual and belief in society* the nature of contemporary religionThe contributors also explore cutting-edge debates about the notion of the soul and collective rituals.

RésuméOn explore ici Les Formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse du point de vue de la relation entre théorie et faits. Dans les premiers volumes de L’Année sociologique , Durkheim avait construit un modèle dans lequel l’Australie fournissait l’exemple de la manière dont, à l’origine, société et religion fusionnaient dans le monde du clan totémique. Il avait la certitude d’avoir discrédité les théories concurrentes. Mais, voilà que sa propre théorie semblait disqualifiée par le choc de nouvelles informations sur l’Australie, avec la description ethnographique par Spencer et Gillen d’une société dont la vie ordinaire ne reposait nullement sur le totémisme, le clan ou la religion. Les Formes sont issues de l’effort pour répondre à Spencer et Gillen et recoller ensemble société et religion. Ce faisant, Durkheim donne souvent une représentation erronée de leur description, sans toutefois la travestir totalement. On peut voir là une reconstruction pleine d’imagination, qui l’a poussé à développer une théorie nouvelle et féconde qui lui est propre : une transfiguration tant de l’Australie de Spencer et Gillen que de l’Australie durkheimienne antérieure. This explores The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life through a focus on the relation, in the work, between theory and « facts ». In the early issues of L’Année sociologique , Durkheim constructed a core view of things in which Australia is the paradigmatic case of how, in the beginning, society and religion are fused together in a world of the totemic clan. He confidently dismissed rival accounts as having completely misunderstood the situation. But it was his own account that soon seemed a complete misunderstanding, thanks to shock news from Australia. This came in a pioneering ethnography by Spencer and Gillen, who described a society in which the main unit of ordinary life has nothing to do with totemism, the clan or religion. The Elementary Forms was created in an effort to answer Spencer and Gillen, and to glue society and religion together again. In the process, it often misrepresented their account, yet without amounting to a total falsification of their ethnography. It is instead an imaginative re-construction, which involved its author in developing a whole new seminal theory of his own. The work is both a transfiguration of Spencer and Gillen’s Australia and a transfiguration of the old Durkheimian Australia.

What was the nature of the ‘revelation’ and of the appreciation of William Robertson Smith that, in 1907, Émile Durkheim dated to 1895? This article tracks new developments in his thought after 1895, including an emphasis on creative effervescence. But there was also continuity, involving a search for origins that used the ethnology of a living culture to identify early human socioreligious life with totemism in Australia. It is this continuity, at the core of his thought after 1895, which helps to bring out the nature of his ‘revelation’ and of his homage to Robertson Smith. It also highlights a problem with his start from an already complex Australian world, yet without a suitable evolutionary perspective available to him. However, a modern re-reading can reinstate Durkheim’s interest in origins, in a story of hominin/human evolution over millions of years.

What was the nature of the ‘revelation’ and of the appreciation of William Robertson Smith that, in 1907, Émile Durkheim dated to 1895? This article tracks new developments in his thought after 1895, including an emphasis on creative effervescence. But there was also continuity, involving a search for origins that used the ethnology of a living culture to identify early human socioreligious life with totemism in Australia. It is this continuity, at the core of his thought after 1895, which helps to bring out the nature of his ‘revelation’ and of his homage to Robertson Smith. It also highlights a problem with his start from an already complex Australian world, yet without a suitable evolutionary perspective available to him. However, a modern re-reading can reinstate Durkheim’s interest in origins, in a story of hominin/human evolution over millions of years.

This article mainly employs a traditional approach of textual analysis to open up a relatively neglected topic, the question of creativity in Durkheim's work, but especially in Les Formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse. It is also especially in a focus on his insistence on a sui generis social realm, while in the course of this exploring his use of terms such as \"substratum\", \"fusion\", and \"synthesis\", as well as examining issues of duality, effervescence, rhythms of life and revolutions. It concludes with his worries over a modern crisis and with his hope in the creative energies of effervescence to try to overcome it. Cet article s'appuie sur la méthode traditionnelle de l'analyse textuelle pour venir à bout d'un sujet relativement négligé, à savoir la question de la créativité dans l'œuvre d'Émile Durkheim, et en premier lieu dans Les Formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse. L'article s'arrête notamment sur l'idée de Durkheim selon laquelle la société serait une réalité sui generis, explore l'usage qu'il fait de termes tels que «substrat», «fusion» et «synthèse», et examine les problèmes liés à certaines notions auxquelles il a recours, comme celles de dualité, effervescence, rythmes et bouleversements de la vie collective. L'article conclut sur les inquiétudes de Durkheim quant à une crise de la modernité et les espoirs qu'il place dans les énergies créatives de l'effervescence pour essayer de la surmonter.