French France (pronounced /ˈfræns/ or /ˈfrɑːns/; French pronunciation (help·info): [fʁɑ̃s]), officially the French Republic (French: République française, pronounced: [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a member state of the European Union located in its western region, with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents. France sociologist Sociology is the study of human societies. It is a social science (with which it is informally synonymous) that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop and refine a body of knowledge on human social activity, often with the goal of applying such knowledge to the pursuit of social welfare. Subject matter Émile Durkheim David Émile Durkheim (April 15, 1858 – November 15, 1917) was a French sociologist and pioneer in the development of modern sociology and anthropology. He is considered as the founding father of the French positivist school of sociology and an early proponent of solidarism considered the dichotomy The two parts thus formed are complements. In logic, the partitions are opposites if there exists a proposition such that it holds over one and not the other between the sacred Holiness, or sanctity, is in general the state of being holy or sacred (considered worthy of spiritual respect or devotion; or inspiring awe or reverence among believers in a given set of spiritual ideas). In other contexts, objects are often considered 'holy' or 'sacred' if used for spiritual purposes, such as the worship or service of gods and the profane The original meaning of the adjective profane referred to items not belonging to the church, e.g. "The fort is the oldest profane building in the town, but the local monastery is older, and is the oldest building," or "besides designing churches, he also designed many profane buildings" to be the central characteristic of religion A religion is a system of human thought which usually includes a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power, deity or deities, or ultimate truth. Religion is commonly identified by the practitioner's prayer, ritual, meditation, music and art,: "religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden."[1] In Durkheim's theory, the sacred represented the interests of the group, especially unity, which were embodied in sacred group symbols, or totems. The profane, on the other hand, involved mundane individual concerns. Durkheim explicitly stated that the dichotomy sacred/profane was not equivalent to good/evil. The sacred could be good or evil, and the profane could be either as well.[2]
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Criticism
Durkheim's claim of the universality of this dichotomy for all religions/cults Cult pejoratively refers to a group whose beliefs or practices could be considered strange or sinister. The term was originally used to denote a system of ritual practices. The narrower, derogatory sense of the word is a product of the 20th century, especially since the 1980s, and is a result of the anti-cult movement, which uses the term in has been criticized by scholars like British anthropologist Anthropology is the holistic, global, comparative study of human beings. It is the comprehensive study of human beings and of their interactions with each other and the environment. The term "anthropology" is pronounced /ænθrɵˈpɒlədʒi/, from the Greek ἄνθρωπος, anthrōpos, "human", and -λογία, -logia, " Jack Goody Sir John Rankine Goody (born 27 July 1919) is a British social anthropologist. He has been a prominent teacher at Cambridge University, he was elected Fellow of the British Academy in 1976, and he is an associate of the US National Academy of Sciences. Among his main publications are Death, property and the ancestors (1962), The myth of the Bagre (.[3] Goody also noted that "many societies have no words that translate as sacred or profane and that ultimately, just like the distinction between natural and supernatural, it was very much a product of European religious thought The term Western religion refers to religions that originated within Western culture, and are thus which historically, culturally, and theologically distinct from the Eastern religions. The contrast between Western and Eastern religions largely pertains to the distinction between monotheism and polytheism, respectively, and the term Abrahamic rather than a universally applicable criterion."[4]
See also
- Carnival Carnival (Carnaval, Καρναβάλι , Carnevale, Carnestoltes, Carnaval, Karneval, Carnaval and Karnawał in Portuguese, Greek, Italian, Catalan, French, Dutch, German, Spanish and Polish languages) is a festive season which occurs immediately before Lent; the main events are usually during January and February. Carnival typically involves a and Carnivalesque
- Grotesque body The grotesque body is a concept, or literary trope, put forward by Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin in his study of Francois Rabelais' work. Through the use of the grotesque body in his novels, Rabelais related political conflicts to human physiology. In this way, Rabelais used the concept as "a figure of unruly biological and social
- Mircea Eliade Mircea Eliade was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day. His theory that hierophanies form the basis of religion, splitting the human experience of
- Profanum
- Ritual A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value, which is prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers, or dictated purely by logic, chance, necessity, etc. and Ceremony Sometimes, a ceremony may only be performed by a person with certain authority. For example, the opening of the United Kingdom Parliament is presided over by the Sovereign . The naming and launching of a warship will be under the supervision of its captain or a higher-ranked naval officer. A wedding will be performed by a priest or a Civil
- Sacred and Profane (8 medieval lyrics) (Choral composition, by Benjamin Britten)
- Sacred and Profane Love (Oil painting, by Titian)
- Social control Social control includes social mechanisms that regulate individual and group behavior, leading to conformity and compliances to the rules of a given society or social group. Many mechanisms of social control are cross-cultural, if only in the control mechanisms used to prevent the establishment of chaos or anomie. Some theorists, such as Emile
Notes
- ^ Durkheim 1915, p.47
- ^ Pals 1996, p. 99
- ^ "The sacred-profane distinction is not universal". http://epress.anu.edu.au/nts/mobile_devices/ch06s03.html. Retrieved 2007-07-10. quote: "neither do the Lo Dagaa [group in Gonja Gonja is a kingdom in northern Ghana; the word can also refer to the people of this kingdom. With the fall of the Songhai Empire (c. 1600), the Mande Ngbanya clan moved south, crossing the Black Volta and founding a city at Yagbum. Under the leadership of Naba'a, the Ngbanya expanded rapidly, conquering several neighbors in the White Volta valley, editor note] appear to have any concepts at all equivalent to the vaguer and not unrelated dichotomy between the sacred and the profane"
- ^ "Sacred and Profane - Durkheim's Critics". http://science.jrank.org/pages/11183/Sacred-Profane-Durkheim-s-Critics.html. Retrieved 2007-07-10.
References
- Durkheim David Émile Durkheim (April 15, 1858 – November 15, 1917) was a French sociologist and pioneer in the development of modern sociology and anthropology. He is considered as the founding father of the French positivist school of sociology and an early proponent of solidarism, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, (1912, English translation by Joseph Swain: 1915) The Free Press, 1965. ISBN 0-02-908010-X, new translation by Karen E. Fields 1995, ISBN 0029079373
- Pals, Daniel (1996) Seven Theories of Religion. New York: Oxford University Press. US ISBN 0-19-508725-9 (pbk).
Further reading
- Bakhtin Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (November 17, 1895 – March 7, 1975) was a Russian philosopher, literary critic, semiotician and scholar who worked on literary theory, ethics, and the philosophy of language. His writings, which cover a wide variety of subjects, inspired scholars working in a number of different traditions (Marxism, semiotics,, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World [1941]. Trans. Hélène Iswolsky. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993.
- C. Renate Barber Sacred and Profane: Some Thoughts on the Folk-Urban Continuum of This Dichotomy Man, Vol. 65, Mar. - Apr., 1965 (Mar. - Apr., 1965), pp. 45-46 doi:10.2307/2797525
- S. S. Acquaviva, Patricia Lipscomb The Decline of the Sacred in Industrial Society. review: [1]
Categories: Dichotomies | Sociology of religion
