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Sociology Optional PYQ Solutions · Model answer

Show how Durkheim through the study of totemism demonstrates the reality of religion.

  • UPSC 2012
  • Sociological Thinkers

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The dominant theories of Émile Durkheim's time explained religion away. E. B. Tylor's animism (Primitive Culture, 1871) traced it to dreams of souls and spirits, and Friedrich Max Müller's naturism traced it to nature's forces personified through language. Both made faith a collective hallucination. In The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912) Durkheim argued that…

You are reading the opening of the model answer. The full answer is part of Sociology Optional PYQ Solutions.

What the full answer covers

  • Why totemism, and why the Arunta
  • The argument, step by step
  • Hence religion is "real"
  • Indian illustration
  • Critiques
  • Conclusion
Sociology Optional PYQ Solutions

Sociology Optional PYQ Solutions

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