eBook - ePub

An Analysis of Mary Douglas's Purity and Danger

Name: An Analysis of Mary Douglas's Purity and Danger
Author: Pádraig Belton

An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo

Pádraig Belton,

127 pages
English
ePUB (mobile friendly)
Available on iOS & Android

eBook - ePub

An Analysis of Mary Douglas's Purity and Danger

An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo

Pádraig Belton,

About this book

Mary Douglas is an outstanding example of an evaluative thinker at work. In Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, she delves in great detail into existing arguments that portray traditional societies as "evolving" from "savage" beliefs in magic, to religion, to modern science, then explains why she believes those arguments are wrong. She also adeptly chaperones readers through a vast amount of data, from firsthand research in the Congo to close readings of the Old Testament, and analyzes it in depth to provide evidence that traditional and Western religions have more in common than the first comparative religion scholars and early anthropologists thought.

First evaluating her scholarly predecessors by marshalling their arguments, Douglas identifies their main weakness: that they dismiss traditional societies and their religions by identifying their practices as "magic, " thereby creating a chasm between savages who believe in magic and sophisticates who practice religion.

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Yes, you can access An Analysis of Mary Douglas's Purity and Danger by Pádraig Belton in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Literature & Literary Criticism. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.