Overview

Philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah explores how early social scientists developed our modern understandings of society through their theories of religion The foundations of modern social science were built on the study of religion, the acclaimed thinker Kwame Anthony Appiah argues. Delving into the intellectual currents of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, he investigates how formative thinkers—notably Edward Burnett Tylor, Émile Durkheim, Georg Simmel, and Max Weber—grappled with the concepts of society and religion as interdependent categories. Appiah shows how their efforts to define religion, or evade the task, mark the power and limitations of social thought in ways that persist among theorists today. Religion was not merely an object of study but a framework through which early social scientists established sociology as a discipline. Appiah also examines more recent work in both interpretive sociology and evolutionary and cognitive psychology about the mechanisms through which communities form beliefs and values—while underscoring the enduring significance of these earlier debates for contemporary social thought. Throughout, he intertwines storytelling, historical analysis, and philosophical reflection to show how our ideas about society and culture have been, and continue to be, forged in dialogue with religious questions.

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9780300233063

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Reviews

“An accessible, readable book that exhibits deep erudition and extensive learnedness worn lightly.  Appiah has an eye for raising the biggest questions about human nature and social existence.” —Angie Heo, University of Chicago “In this elegant, witty, and often-brilliant book, Anthony Appiah explores the fundamental significance of religion for modern development of the very idea of societies. This is a rich and valuable work for all who would understand religion, social science, and modernity itself.”—Craig Calhoun, Arizona State University and Princeton University    

Author Information

Kwame Anthony Appiah is the Silver Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University. His books include The Ethics of Identity, Lines of Descent: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Emergence of Identity, The Lies that Bind: Rethinking Identity, and As If: Idealization and Ideals. He writes the weekly “Ethicist” column for the New York Times Magazine.

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