Você está na página 1de 9

06 066545 Rawls (bc-d)

11/7/06

11:32 am

Page 127

H I S T O RY O F T H E H U M A N S C I E N C E S

Vol. 19 No. 3

2006 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)

pp. 127135

[19:3; 127135; DOI: 10.1177/0952695106066545]

Explanation or Exegesis:
Exhuming Durkheims
Epistemology
DOUG MARSHALL

Anne Warfield Rawls, Epistemology and Practice: Durkheims Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2005. ISBN 0-521-65145-X, xxi + 353 pp. 50.00, $80.00.

Rawlss new book is an ambitious and painstaking piece of scholarship,


intending nothing less than a significant reinterpretation of one of sociologys
foundational texts. Her thesis is that the Elementary Forms is less a treatise in
the sociologies of religion and knowledge than it is Durkheims attempt to
construct a unique epistemology on which to ground the discipline as a whole.
As Rawls details in her clear and readable, but sometimes repetitive, account,
Durkheims motivating concern in writing the Elementary Forms is the venerable problem of establishing the empirical validity of Kants categories of
understanding. By her account, he sees such validity and, hence, mutual intelligibility, as indispensable to both human rationality and human society, but
rejects Kants apriorist solution, as well as Humes conundrum itself, as but
artefacts of their individualist approach. For Durkheim, the problem disappears as soon as one understands that the categories are produced in social
interaction, or, more specifically, in ritual practice. Such practices provide an
experiential basis for valid categories by inducing moral forces within the
participants which possess two unique properties. First, they are experienced

Downloaded from hhs.sagepub.com at UNIV SOUTH ALABAMA LIBRARY on August 23, 2016

06 066545 Rawls (bc-d)

128

11/7/06

11:32 am

Page 128

H I S T O RY O F T H E H U M A N S C I E N C E S

19(3)

as whole, interior and emotional events, outside of sense perception, and thus
bypass the Humean problem of extracting abstract categories from particular
perceptions. This experience of moral force then begets empirically valid ideas
of causality (integral to the experience of force), of categorization (i.e. the
sacred vs. the profane), and of the rest of the categories. Second, such effects
are socially produced and jointly experienced by all participants in a given
ritual (or apparently any ritual), thereby insuring compatibility and communicability of the categories and concepts derived from them.
We can evaluate the work on at least two dimensions: historical and theoretical. On the historical dimension she is mostly successful, assembling a
convincing case for the largely overlooked centrality of epistemology to the
Elementary Forms, as evidenced both by Durkheims own assertions, and by
the structure and organization of the book itself. In this, she recovers for
history a different and clearer picture of the intentions and reasoning behind
a sociological classic. Durkheims ambitions included not only the construction of an independent basis for sociology, but also, like other founders, a
grander project of reinventing philosophy as a social science (27) by providing social solutions to some of its most intractable problems.
My only reservations about Rawlss historical case are quantitative, in that
I fear that the boldest of her claims about the primacy of epistemology in the
Elementary Forms e.g. It is only because of the role that Durkheim believes
religion . . . plays in the development of human reason that he has explored
it (34) is stronger than the evidence supports. The frequent recurrence of
religious themes throughout Durkheims life and work strongly suggests that
it is a consistent concern for him, worthy of, and in need of, explanation in
and of itself. Moreover, while epistemology is clearly a central theme, and
even formative to the book, the argument is just too easily overlooked to
plausibly be the theme. Even granting the several reasons she offers to
account for its latency, the fact remains that the Elementary Forms is singularly poorly designed to do what Rawls claims Durkheim is trying to do, but
is very effective at conveying the social-origins-of-religion thesis that has
long been attributed to it. It is significant that when, a few years after the
publication of the book, Durkheim weighed in to correct common misunderstandings of the work, the topic of the article was dualism, not epistemology. Moreover, all he has to say here about the grand epistemology Rawls
uncovers is this: We have even found a basis for conjecturing that the
fundamental and lofty concepts we call categories are formed on the model
of social phenomena (Durkheim, 1964: 338; emphasis added). Rawls has
successfully demonstrated that the epistemic elements of Elementary Forms
are by no means an afterthought, as many have assumed, but nor are they its
raison dtre. The mystery she evokes but does not solve is that of how and
why such an originally central theme becomes relegated to mere conjecture
in the authors own eyes.

Downloaded from hhs.sagepub.com at UNIV SOUTH ALABAMA LIBRARY on August 23, 2016

06 066545 Rawls (bc-d)

11/7/06

11:32 am

Page 129

E X P L A N AT I O N O R E X E G E S I S

On the theoretical dimension, ones evaluation is largely dependent upon


their understanding of the purpose and methods of sociological theory. As
one who believes that theorys primary purpose is to provide causal explanations of social behavior and phenomena based on empirical data, and that
canonical works warrant their status primarily on the basis of their fecundity
at providing the conceptual components with which to construct such explanations, I believe Rawls does the discipline the great service of disinterring
at least two of Durkheims crucial, but oft-neglected, insights. The first of
these is that beliefs are secondary phenomena, and as such are essentially
irrelevant as means of social explanation. In the present case, Durkheim sees
religious beliefs, including the belief in deities, as but piecework products of
retrospective attempts to make sense of enacted practices, and thus largely
inconsequential as causal forces in themselves. At best, they simply ensure
that the practices get repeated. This insight is likely to be the focus of other
critics scorn, as it runs against the grain of sociologys prevailing custom of
privileging the word over the world. But as Rawls points out, this custom
threatens to render sociology obsolete (316) because Having come to see
the world as consisting primarily of concepts, beliefs, norms, and values . . .
contemporary social theory has some problem explaining the relevance and
validity of empirical research (326). Hopefully, her exhumation of this
perspective will not only serve as something of a corrective to this trend, but
will open the door to an overdue revitalization of sociological research into
the considerable non-symbolic dimensions of social life.
The second important insight revealed here concerns the importance of
dualism in human nature. In light of his 1914 article, it is arguable that this
is what Durkheim came to see as perhaps the primary theoretical contribution of the Elementary Forms, or at least more so than the epistemology.
While I would contend that he parses the distinction incorrectly (see Chaiken
and Trope, 1999), his instincts about the significance and theoretical potential of homo duplex are spot on. In combination with his insight about the
primacy of practice over belief, it constitutes a powerful tool of social explanation that anticipates both Festingers (1957) theory of cognitive dissonance
and Berger and Luckmans (1967) model of the sedimentation of knowledge.
Less obviously, but just as significantly, the attention that Durkheim, and in
turn Rawls, give to dualism makes explicit what too often remains unacknowledged in sociological theory the inevitable and profoundly important presuppositions about human nature that underlie it.
However, the same pragmatic perspective on theory that leads me to laud
Rawlss advocacy of these insights also leads me to conclude that, whatever
its historical relevance, the theoretical argument that they are put to work in
the service of, is of little significance. Granting for the moment the relevance
of Durkheims focal problems of validity and intelligibility, his proffered
solution is shot through with shaky reasoning. For example, the circularities

Downloaded from hhs.sagepub.com at UNIV SOUTH ALABAMA LIBRARY on August 23, 2016

129

06 066545 Rawls (bc-d)

130

11/7/06

11:32 am

Page 130

H I S T O RY O F T H E H U M A N S C I E N C E S

19(3)

derided by the works first critics remain. To wit, Durkheim claims both that
categories result from social experience and that social experience is only
possible once categories are formed. How then does either ever arise?
Likewise, if, as he claims, religious ritual is necessary to produce reason, how
does one explain the occurrence of ritual in the first place given that, as far
as we know, no non-reasoning species engages in it? The response to such
criticism is almost as unsatisfying as the original circularity. Early on,
Durkheim dismisses the extant alternatives to his explanation by saying that
the categories cannot be a priori because they vary too much from place to
place, but individual empiricism cannot explain them because they are much
more constant than generalization would allow for. That is, only the social
solution provides just the right amount of consistency. Rawls follows
Durkheims lead by invoking his dualism to posit that animals instinctively
possess just the right amount of knowledge about the categories to make
possible the ritual practices that produce their valid counterparts. Such arguments raise serious operationalization problems that may defy clear falsification, considerably reduce the explanatory scope of the model, and are less
parsimonious than alternatives which see the valid, human versions of the
categories as continuous with their invalid, animal antecedents, and thus
amenable to unitary explanation.
Meanwhile, the argument also retains the kind of teleological reasoning,
with its attendant ontological and other problems, that has long plagued
Durkheim. Despite a nod towards a defensible interpretation of function as
a matter of selective retention, Rawlss account makes frequent recourse to
claims that something will happen because it is necessary that it happen in
order for society to continue (285) or is a fundamental social need that lies
beneath religious practice and dictates that the categories must, and therefore
will, be generated (38). Equally questionable reasoning appears in Durkheims
conclusion wherein he introduces an elusive idea of compatibility in arguing
that because the categories are primarily to be utilized in social contexts, they
must also have a social origin, because otherwise they would not be suited
to that purpose.
My high regard for Durkheim inclines me to believe that he was not blind
to such weaknesses, and I suspect that this awareness is partly responsible
for the latency of the epistemology recognizing that the fruits of his labor
were a weak argument about epistemology but a powerful theory of religion,
perhaps he chose to frame the work as more the latter than the former by
simply leaving the epistemological elements unemphasized, and by leaving
its general reception as a theory of religion uncorrected.
But this is speculative, and quarreling with Durkheims logic is a moot
point. While arguably a valid sociological question as Durkheim understood
it in his day, the problem of epistemological validity is no more compelling
today than is his proposed solution. From an empirical perspective, we know

Downloaded from hhs.sagepub.com at UNIV SOUTH ALABAMA LIBRARY on August 23, 2016

06 066545 Rawls (bc-d)

11/7/06

11:32 am

Page 131

E X P L A N AT I O N O R E X E G E S I S

that, contrary to Durkheims perfunctory dismissal, the evidence supports


Kants apriorist solution that the categories are innate, in that by 3 to 4
months of age, human infants can represent causality and 6-month-olds can
compose classes and perform some logical operations (Spelke et al., 1992),
and even demonstrate some mathematical skills by 5 months of age (Wynn,
1992). Moreover, at least the logical abilities are not unique to humans
(Premack, 1976).
Even if this were not the case, the intra-individual particularism of perception that bothered Hume in the first place is more a property of the blank
slate ideal of philosophers than it is of actual human perception. The brain is
a profoundly active organ of perception, constantly seeking or even projecting connective patterns, as the Gestalt School first appreciated long ago.
More fundamentally, to an actual brain, categorization is unproblematic, in
that separate instances are united by the common patterns of neural activation they produce. A similar argument serves to dismiss the inter-individual
intelligibility problem. In much the same, but a more fundamental, sense
that sharing a ritual creates shared ideas as per Durkheim, sharing a genetic
code and a planet and an evolutionary history also creates the necessary underpinnings of intelligibility. In short, biologically similar perceptual apparatuses
can be expected to respond to the same stimuli in much the same way.
Neither is it true that, as Durkheim contends, morality is contrary to individual animal natures and dependent upon the establishment of intelligibility
in the first place. The necessary elements of morality precede humanity,
functioning on a non-verbal level that again makes the empirical validity of
communication irrelevant to social functioning (DeWaal, 1996; Lorenz, 1967).
Finally, from the philosophical perspective, as Popper (in Radnitzky and
Bartley, 1987) among others has observed, a priori validity is both impossible and unnecessary to science as well as survival. Rawls herself notes that
the current consensus is that epistemological questions in their classical form
make no sense (230).
We must then ask whether its historical relevance alone warrants the
extended exposition it receives here. And in what sense does an unsatisfactory solution to a non-existent philosophical problem constitute sociological theory? This brings us to the third dimension on which the work can
usefully be evaluated as an artefact in its own right. I would contend that
the existence of the book itself is a manifestation of the prevalence of a very
different conception of sociological theory than the one subscribed to above,
a scholasticism that emphasizes the reinterpretation of classic texts at the
expense of the scientific explanation of social behavior and phenomena. Such
an approach is well suited to the humanities, but not to the social science that
sociology claims to be. Exactly how Durkheim (or anyone else) thought of
social facts almost 100 years ago may be interesting, but it is a patently unscientific question in itself. What is ironic and frustrating is that Rawls herself

Downloaded from hhs.sagepub.com at UNIV SOUTH ALABAMA LIBRARY on August 23, 2016

131

06 066545 Rawls (bc-d)

132

11/7/06

11:32 am

Page 132

H I S T O RY O F T H E H U M A N S C I E N C E S

19(3)

decries sociologys enslavement to a history of ideas approach (18) in the


very text that manifests it.
The coexistence of these two conceptions of theory bespeaks a disciplinary identity crisis, and the two approaches may be at odds, but they are by
no means necessarily mutually exclusive. The real problems arise when these
separate domains, commentary and explanation, encroach upon one another.
As Durkheim demonstrates in the Elementary Forms, the conflict between
science and religion comes to a head when religion takes it upon itself to make
assertions about the nature of the physical world that science is better
equipped to provide. Likewise, disciplinary tensions reveal themselves at
their worst when commentary veers into explanatory elaboration or apologetics without the insistence on empirical grounding that usually encumbers
those working in the domain of explanation. The result is sociologys wellestablished willingness to blithely make ex cathedra claims about individual
states and functioning, apparently without experiencing any compulsion to
provide empirical support for these claims.
In the present case, Durkheims question of the origin of the categories of
understanding is ultimately an empirical one which is inextricably tied up
with questions of human nature that psychology is much better suited to
answering than is either sociology or philosophy. Despite his own considerable bravado in proffering such claims throughout the Elementary Forms,
Durkheim displays an awareness of this fact in two ways: first, he is explicit
about stating his foundational assumptions and at least attempts to justify
them where possible; second, he makes it clear not only that uncovering the
psychological mechanisms at work is an instrumental step towards solving
the problem, but that establishing their veracity is essential (1995: 351). As
he argued in his 1914 article on dualism, Although sociology is defined as
the science of societies, it cannot, in reality, deal with the human groups that
are the immediate object of its investigation without eventually touching on
the individual who is the basic element of which these groups are composed
(1964: 325). Given that his own claims were made about the time that the
first serious research on perception and cognition was getting underway, and
thus before he could be expected to incorporate it even if so inclined, this is
one case where we should perhaps attend more to what Durkheim said than
to what he did.
However, such willful ignorance about the individual the indispensable
substrate of the social world is much less understandable given the relatively advanced state of perceptual and cognitive research in the 21st century.
This is especially true in light of the fact that the thing being explained here
is so obviously an individual-level phenomenon. Whatever its origins (and
even Durkheims model is not the radically social model it may appear to be),
reason remains a property of individuals, manifest primarily in individual
cognition, decision and behavior. Yet even as the individual is the necessary

Downloaded from hhs.sagepub.com at UNIV SOUTH ALABAMA LIBRARY on August 23, 2016

06 066545 Rawls (bc-d)

11/7/06

11:32 am

Page 133

E X P L A N AT I O N O R E X E G E S I S

and unavoidable referent in discussions of reason and its origin, Rawls


presents and defends Durkheims argument as though it continues to exist in
an empirical vacuum in which biology and psychology have nothing to tell
us about such questions, and the validity of categories remains a pressing
concern. Indeed, the one time she addresses biology directly, her cited source
is a column by George Will, which she misinterprets as providing a basis to
dismiss the need for any further consideration of such evidence.
An analysis of the reasons for sociologys refusal to behave like a science
is beyond the scope of this review, but two points seem germane. First, it is
of a piece with a handful of other, but related, tendencies, some of them also
on display in the present work: the reification of a vaguely defined but wellworn concept of the social as though it had an existence independent of the
biological organisms that compose it, the derogatory use of individualist,
the perfunctory dismissal of biological/psychological alternatives, the
continued attempts at upward reduction by explaining how putatively individual phenomena are actually social, the insistence on an essential discontinuity between human and non-human and on human nature as a tabula
rasa. All of these can arguably be seen as manifestations of a long-standing
and widespread case of disciplinary insecurity with regard to its scientific
neighbors.
The second point is a reiteration of the old two cultures argument. The
liberal arts undergraduates from whom most professional sociologists are
recruited are imbued with what Nicholas Kristof (2005) has recently termed
the hubris of the humanities wherein it is considered barbaric in educated
circles to be unfamiliar with Plato or Monet or Dickens, but quite natural to
be oblivious of quarks and chi-squares. While most sociologists are (presumably) familiar with at least chi-squares, our in-house statistics and methods
classes are often the only (grudging) exposure they (we) have to scientific
theory and practice beyond general education requirements. It is unsurprising, then, that sociology while still ostensibly a social science should
come to more closely resemble literature, rhetoric and philosophy than any
known branch of science.
While this trend may be unsurprising, it is unfortunate since science, for
all of its supposed faults, has proven itself to be the most reliable and
powerful known means of understanding how the world works. In the
modern era, our remarkable progress in understanding the physical aspects
of the world has made it more, not less, important that we develop better
understandings of its social aspects as well. But sociologys retreat from
science, and its insular insecurity, make it less and less likely that they are
forthcoming, at least from the queen of the sciences.
In the end, there is little doubt as to the historical significance of Rawlss
work, or of the importance of the theoretical insights she champions in
making her case. My reaction to the book is largely born of what I see as the

Downloaded from hhs.sagepub.com at UNIV SOUTH ALABAMA LIBRARY on August 23, 2016

133

06 066545 Rawls (bc-d)

134

11/7/06

11:32 am

Page 134

H I S T O RY O F T H E H U M A N S C I E N C E S

19(3)

discord between the Durkheim of practice over belief, of homo duplex, of


psychologically grounded theory and of empirical social science that she
unearths in making her case, and the mainstream, and in my view unfortunate, conception of sociological theory as a history of ideas that the book
is testament to, despite her own well-founded misgivings about it. In short,
I feel that in her commitment to the larger project of textual exegesis, she
does not follow the insights she unearths along the way nearly far enough.
But it is a start in the right direction, and for that reason, my reaction to the
book is hopeful.
I must conclude by pointing out the great irony that in the process of
trying and failing to make a convincing case for a social solution to what is
effectively a non-problem, Rawls seriously underestimates the depth of
human sociality. At an abstract level, Durkheims instincts are partly right
sociality does precede reason, but at the biological, not biographical level.
Sociality was a necessary prerequisite to the emergence of that bundle of
cognitive abilities that make human cognition quantitatively, if not qualitatively, distinct (Bonner, 1980). We, as a species, were social and moral
creatures long before we were reasoning, and rationality remains dependent
upon social context for its realization. But this also means that instincts are
partly wrong in that he gets the dependence backwards the existence and
maintenance of human society do not depend upon the ritual production of
reason but rather human sociality and human society were necessary prerequisites for the emergence of reason, while the power of ritual is a product
of the dually social and reasoning natures of humankind (Marshall, 2002).

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Berger, P. L. and Luckman, T. (1967) The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise
in the Sociology of Knowledge. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books.
Bonner, J. T. (1980) The Evolution of Culture in Animals. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Chaiken, Shelly and Trope, Yaacov, eds (1999) Dual Process Theories in Social Psychology. New York: Guilford Press.
De Waal, F. (1996) Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and
Other Animals. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Durkheim, Emile (1964[1914]) The Dualism of Human Nature and Its Social
Conditions, in Essays on Sociology and Philosophy, ed. Kurt H. Wolff. New
York: Harper & Row, pp. 32540.
Durkheim, Emile (1995[1912]) The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, trans. K. E.
Fields. New York: Free Press.
Festinger, L. (1957) A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Evanston, IL: Row, Peterson.
Kristof, Nicholas D. (2005) The Hubris of the Humanities, New York Times,
6 December, section A, p. 27.

Downloaded from hhs.sagepub.com at UNIV SOUTH ALABAMA LIBRARY on August 23, 2016

06 066545 Rawls (bc-d)

11/7/06

11:32 am

Page 135

E X P L A N AT I O N O R E X E G E S I S
Lorenz, K. (1967) On Aggression. New York: Bantam Books.
Marshall, D. A. (2002) Behavior, Belonging, and Belief: a Theory of Ritual Practice,
Sociological Theory 20(3): 36080.
Premack, David (1976) Intelligence in Apes and Man. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Radnitzky, Gerard and Bartley, W. W., eds (1987) Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality, and the Sociology of Knowledge. Peru, IL: Open Court Publishing.
Spelke, E. S., Breinlinger, K., Macomber, J. and Jacobson, K. (1992) Origins of
Knowledge, Psychological Review 99: 60532.
Wynn, K. (1992) Addition and Subtraction by Human Infants, Nature 358: 74950.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
DOUG MARSHALL is an assistant professor of Sociology at the University of
South Alabama. His work lies at the intersection of sociological theory and
social psychology, with applications to the domains of religion and rationality. He is currently revising his dissertation on the socio-structual determinants of rationality for publication with Lexington Books.

Address: Department of Sociology HUMB 34, University of South Alabama,


Mobile, AL 36688, USA. [email: damarshall@usouthal.edu]

Downloaded from hhs.sagepub.com at UNIV SOUTH ALABAMA LIBRARY on August 23, 2016

135

Você também pode gostar