Elementary forms of the metaphorical life: Tropes at work in Durkheim’s theory of the religious
@article{McKinnon2014ElementaryFO, title={Elementary forms of the metaphorical life: Tropes at work in Durkheim’s theory of the religious}, author={Andrew McKinnon}, journal={Journal of Classical Sociology}, year={2014}, volume={14}, pages={203 - 221} }
Scholars have not infrequently called attention to the master metaphors in Durkheim’s writing, those figures, typically drawn from biology, physics and chemistry, which structure his sociological thought. Less attention has been given to the work that metaphors do in Durkheim’s texts, or to Durkheim’s fundamental ambivalence about metaphor. This paper argues that Durkheim depends on metaphor to construct the building blocks, and not just the overall architecture, of his argument in The…
8 Citations
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