The Social Origins of Thought

Durkheim, Mauss, and the Category Project

Mario Schmidt editor Martin Zillinger editor Johannes FM Schick editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Berghahn Books

Published:11th Mar '22

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

The Social Origins of Thought cover

By studying how different societies understand categories such as time and causality, the Durkheimians decentered Western epistemology.  With contributions from philosophy, sociology, anthropology, media studies, and sinology, this volume illustrates the interdisciplinarity and intellectual rigor of the “category project” which did not only stir controversies among contemporary scholars but paved the way for other theories exploring how the thoughts of individuals are prefigured by society and vice versa.

“It makes a clear contribution to its field by a group of scholars with a coherent nucleus in Germany, many of whom have been researching this topic for years, if not decades … it represents the culmination, at least for the time being, of work on these issues (the Durkheimians and the categories).”• Robert Parkin, University of Oxford

“This is a collective book from international scholars assessing the legacy of the Durkheim school of sociology through the epistemological question of the origins of categories of thought … This is a significant contribution to the historical epistemology in France.”• Frédéric Keck, Director of Research at the Laboratory of Social Anthropology (CNRS-Collège de France-EHESS).

ISBN: 9781800732339

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

332 pages