The Study On Totemism From Durkheim

Durkheim was a great sociologist and religious scientist.In his later works,he paid more and more attention to the study of religion and began to emphasize the positive role of religion in the social operation.In particular,his most important later work,"The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life",showed incisively and vividly.Durkheim focused his attention on the study of primitive religions.In his opinion,we study the most primitive religions because "It seems more suitable for us to understand the religious nature of human beings than other religions,that is,it seems convenient for us to show the essence and eternal aspects of human nature.That is to say,primitive religions can better explore the pure relationship between people and society,which is unmatched by any other religions.The treatment of primitive religions needs a breakthrough.Since religion requires the opposition between secular things and sacred things,and it is clear to us that secular things refer to the nature where human beings live,and how sacred things can be found in nature,Durkheim finally focused his attention on totems.It is no exaggeration to say that totem is a key to understand Durkheim's religious thoughts.Only by a more detailed analysis of Durkheim's totem concepts can we have a glimpse of his broad thoughts.Then we can deeply understand why he said that the object of worship of primitive man was actually society.This paper tries to summarize the research results of predecessors,comprehensively introduce Durkheim's totem view,and try to combine the totem view with the previous social theory of Durkheim,so as to find out the internal connection and the impact of totem on primitive religion and society.The first chapter of this paper is the introduction,mainly introduces the significance of topic selection,and the introduction of Durkheim totem theory research results at home and abroad.The second chapter reviews the historical and intellectual background of Durkheim'stheory.In his life,although science and technology advance by leaps and bounds,the economy changes with each passing day,but the degeneration and darkness of the society are increasingly obvious.According to Durkheim,this is social anomia.In order to solve the problem of social anomalism Durkheim hoped to find the answer from religion.At the same time,the study of primitive religion has also been relatively rich results,and Durkheim is an excellent sociologist,the study of religion is reasonable.The third chapter criticizes the totem theory of predecessors.Durkheim first criticized the worship of nature and animism in the basic forms of religious life.On this basis,he also criticized the existing totem theory effectively.As a part of the book,it is an important chapter.This paper also follows the logical order of Durkheim,which criticizes the totem views of Taylor and Frazer.The fourth chapter mainly discusses the relationship between totem and other things after it becomes a symbol.As a kind of sacred objects worshiped by primitive people,totem is gradually abstracted to form a special symbol of a tribe in the process of worship.And the impact of this symbol goes far beyond physical totems.Compared with the real object and soul,it is more clear what totem Durkheim said is.The transformation from individual totem to collective totem shows that social activities are increasingly extensive and people communicate with each other more and more.Therefore,a system is needed to authenticate a group of people.The fifth chapter mainly discusses the impact of totems on society.Durkheim resorted to religion in order to solve the problem of social anomalism,and totem itself has the function of identity and social unity,so totem can play an important role in social operation.The sixth chapter summarizes the whole thesis and appraise Durkheim's totem view.