Place of the Political in Emile Durkheim''s Social Epistemology: Transgression, Affect, Subjectivation

Abstract

The paper suggests an analysis and interpretation of the sociological theory of knowledge, that was developed in its classical form by Emile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss. Author focuses on Durkheimian interpretation of ethnographic texts, which formed the basis for his further theoretical speculations. Durkheim understood a ritual as an event deeply rooted in the ontology of the social and considered this phenomenon as central element for his project of epistemology. His project is theoretically and methodologically uncomplete and requires a solution for the key question concerning the origin of knowledge categories. The solution considered in this paper is a 'political' one. Author suggest that 'Elementary forms of religious life' implicitly content this very solution. According to Durkheim the effervescence phenomenon has crucial role in the collective production of categories of knowledge. Author tries to show that effervescence can be described as a political process of subjectivation. The end goal of this article is not to develop a complete methodological programme of research into the political aspect of knowledge, but a) to demonstrate the heuristic potential of this approach applied to the problem of identifying and analysing the mechanisms of collective produc-36 tion of knowledge, b) to embed this argument in the context of historical and theoretical debates on the heritage of Durkheim.