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Article: Three Faces of God: Society, Religion, and the Categories of Totality in the Philosophy of Emile Durkheim.(Review)
- Article from:
- Sociology of Religion
- Article date:
- March 22, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 Association for the Sociology of Religion. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Three Faces of God: Society, Religion, and the Categories of Totality in the Philosophy of Emile Durkheim, by DONALD A. NIELSEN. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1999, xvi + 268pp. $59.50 (cloth), $19.95 (paper).
The title of this work is an accurate statement of its intentions. Nielsen wishes to show that Durkheim's lifelong project was significantly more than an attempt to assert the independence of society as a reality and sociology as a discipline. These are but key symptoms of a much more ambitious undertaking that is nothing short of the development of a monistic sociological metaphysic. Durkheim and his school, according to Nielsen, sought ...