Captive Gods: Religion and the Rise of Social Science (The Terry Lectures Series)

Synopsis

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.

Copyright:

2025

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

ISBN-13:

9780300285697

Related ISBNs:

9780300233063

Publisher:

Yale University Press

Date of Addition:

10/07/25

Copyrighted By:

Kwame Anthony Appiah

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

History, Nonfiction, Religion and Spirituality, Philosophy, Sociology

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.