Gift Exchange as an Elementary Form of Religious Life

通过对礼物交换的研究,莫斯不仅超越了涂尔干理论中神圣—社会与凡俗—个体的二元对立,而且说明了道德行为兼具的可求性与强制性,揭示了社会纽带建构与存续的逻辑,从而进一步回答了涂尔干的宗教社会学所关注的“人性/社会如何可能”的问题。与此同时,当代的研究还表明,礼物范式有助于我们更深入地理解宗教之不可化约的独特属性,即涂尔干所说的宗教所具有的“自成一类的力”。在一定意义上,莫斯的《礼物》是对涂尔干的《宗教生活的基本形式》的答复或重写,而礼物交换就是宗教生活的一种基本形式。

With his study on gift exchange , Mauss not only transcended the dichotomy between the sacred society and the profane individual that haunted Durkheim' s social theory , but also reconciled the desirability and obligation of moral acts, and revealed the logics of the foundation and durability of social bonds.In this way , he better answered how society human nature is possible — a question with which Durkheim' s sociology of religion was primarily concerned.Furthermore , as contemporary interpretations showed , the gift paradigm gives us a deeper insight into the irreducible specificity of religion , namely , in Durkheim' s words religion' s “force sui generis” .In a sense , Mauss' s The Gift could be read as a response to or a rewriting of Durkheim' s The Elementary Forms of Religious Life ;or briefly , gift exchange is an elementary form of religious life .

汲喆

欢迎阅读《社会学研究》！您是该文第4825位读者！