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Appendix to 'Forms & Foundations'
In the interest of full disclosure, I'm posting the parts of Emile Durkheim's Elementary Forms of Religious Life on which Forms & Foundations is based. I hope I got the most blatant of them, and if I didn't, please do tell!
Durkheim, Emile. Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Trans. Joseph Swain. New York: Free Press, 1965.
Mythology is where our non-identity is staged. It is where what we are not is housed.
[W]e are continually coming upon beings which have the most contradictory attributes simultaneously, who are at the same time one and many, material and spiritual, who can divide themselves up indefinitely without losing anything of their constitution. pg25
When we attempt to revolt against [our categories of thought], and to free ourselves from some of these essential ideas, we meet with great resistances. They do not merely depend upon us, but they impose themselves upon us. … It is true that when our sensations are actual, they impose themselves upon us in fact. But by right we are free to conceive them otherwise than they really are, or to represent them to ourselves as occurring in a different order from that where they are really produced. … Under these conditions forcing reason back upon experience causes it to disappear, for it is equivalent to reducing the universality … to an illusion, which may be useful practically, but which corresponds to nothing in reality. pg27
It is said that an idea is necessary when it imposes itself upon the mind by some sort of virtue of its own, without being accompanied by any proof. It contains within it something which constrains the intelligence and which leads to its acceptance without preliminary examination. pg?? from the intro
An idea is in reality only a part of ourselves; then how could it confer upon us powers superior to those which we have of our own nature? pg464
These perfect beings which are gods could not have taken their traits from so mediocre, and sometimes even so base a reality. pg467
Some reply that men have a natural faculty for idealizing, that is to say, of substituting for the real world another different one, to which they transport themselves by thought. But that is merely changing the terms of the problem; it is not resolving it or even advancing it. … Men alone have the faculty of conceiving the ideal, of adding something to the real. pg469
In a word, above the real world where his profane life passes he has placed another which, in one sense, does not exist except in thought, but to which he attributes a higher sort of dignity than to the first. pg470
The ideal society is not outside of the real society; it is a part of it. Far from being divided between them as between two poles which mutually repel each other, we cannot hold to one without holding to the other. pg470
A man cannot retain [beliefs] any length of time by a purely personal effort; it is not thus that they are born or that they are acquired; it is even doubtful if they can be kept under these conditions. In fact, a man who has a veritable faith feels an invincible need of spreading it: therefore he leaves his isolation, approaches others and seeks to convince them, and it is the ardor of the convictions which he arouses that strengthens his own. It would quickly weaken if it remained alone. pg473
There are no gospels which are immortal, but neither is there any reason for believing that humanity is incapable of inventing new ones. pg476
We are never sure of again finding a perception such as we experienced it the first time; for if the thing perceived has not changed, it is we who are no longer the same. … If it changes, it is not because it is its nature to do so, but because we have discovered some imperfection in it; it is because it had to be rectified. pg481
Hence the individual at least obscurely takes account of the fact that above his private ideas, there is a world of absolute ideas according to which he must shape his own; he catches a glimpse of a whole intellectual kingdom in which he participates, but which is greater than he. This is the first intuition of the realm of truth. pg485
[W]at we are trying to find out is why we must lead these two existences at the same time. Why do these two worlds, which seem to contradict each other, not remain outside of each other, and why must they mutually penetrate one another in spite of their antagonism? pg494
Durkheim, Emile. Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Trans. Joseph Swain. New York: Free Press, 1965.
Mythology is where our non-identity is staged. It is where what we are not is housed.
[W]e are continually coming upon beings which have the most contradictory attributes simultaneously, who are at the same time one and many, material and spiritual, who can divide themselves up indefinitely without losing anything of their constitution. pg25
When we attempt to revolt against [our categories of thought], and to free ourselves from some of these essential ideas, we meet with great resistances. They do not merely depend upon us, but they impose themselves upon us. … It is true that when our sensations are actual, they impose themselves upon us in fact. But by right we are free to conceive them otherwise than they really are, or to represent them to ourselves as occurring in a different order from that where they are really produced. … Under these conditions forcing reason back upon experience causes it to disappear, for it is equivalent to reducing the universality … to an illusion, which may be useful practically, but which corresponds to nothing in reality. pg27
It is said that an idea is necessary when it imposes itself upon the mind by some sort of virtue of its own, without being accompanied by any proof. It contains within it something which constrains the intelligence and which leads to its acceptance without preliminary examination. pg?? from the intro
An idea is in reality only a part of ourselves; then how could it confer upon us powers superior to those which we have of our own nature? pg464
These perfect beings which are gods could not have taken their traits from so mediocre, and sometimes even so base a reality. pg467
Some reply that men have a natural faculty for idealizing, that is to say, of substituting for the real world another different one, to which they transport themselves by thought. But that is merely changing the terms of the problem; it is not resolving it or even advancing it. … Men alone have the faculty of conceiving the ideal, of adding something to the real. pg469
In a word, above the real world where his profane life passes he has placed another which, in one sense, does not exist except in thought, but to which he attributes a higher sort of dignity than to the first. pg470
The ideal society is not outside of the real society; it is a part of it. Far from being divided between them as between two poles which mutually repel each other, we cannot hold to one without holding to the other. pg470
A man cannot retain [beliefs] any length of time by a purely personal effort; it is not thus that they are born or that they are acquired; it is even doubtful if they can be kept under these conditions. In fact, a man who has a veritable faith feels an invincible need of spreading it: therefore he leaves his isolation, approaches others and seeks to convince them, and it is the ardor of the convictions which he arouses that strengthens his own. It would quickly weaken if it remained alone. pg473
There are no gospels which are immortal, but neither is there any reason for believing that humanity is incapable of inventing new ones. pg476
We are never sure of again finding a perception such as we experienced it the first time; for if the thing perceived has not changed, it is we who are no longer the same. … If it changes, it is not because it is its nature to do so, but because we have discovered some imperfection in it; it is because it had to be rectified. pg481
Hence the individual at least obscurely takes account of the fact that above his private ideas, there is a world of absolute ideas according to which he must shape his own; he catches a glimpse of a whole intellectual kingdom in which he participates, but which is greater than he. This is the first intuition of the realm of truth. pg485
[W]at we are trying to find out is why we must lead these two existences at the same time. Why do these two worlds, which seem to contradict each other, not remain outside of each other, and why must they mutually penetrate one another in spite of their antagonism? pg494