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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

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…

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What the full answer covers

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

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