Kurzbeschreibung

Reihe: Recht als Kultur. Band: 20

In his search for a solution to the crisis of modern societies, the great French sociologist Émile Durkheim repeatedly touched upon the religious complex without assuming a cure for the normative crisis of modern societies in this institution. For him, the conditions for a new type of social solidarity exist precisely because religion loses its determinative power to center collective feelings while still serving as the original institution from which the different »functions« of social life are separated. The functions that »free« themselves from religious life include law. But what does this separation of religion and law mean for the loss of normative binding power which Durkheim emphasizes? For Durkheim, the key to understanding the normative structure of a given society is not to be found in religious beliefs in themselves, but rather in what they signify - what is symbolized by religious beliefs. The contributions to this volume tackle the questions arising from this intimate connection of the social, the sacred and the law as conceived by Durkheim from a multitude of perspectives.