Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Symbolic classification – literally, complex arrangements of symbols into wholes – refers to the process of classifying and ordering by means of which individuals are able to make sense of the natural and social world. They do so by means of models of categorization that are culturally and socially determined. Such categories are cast in concrete images that we may call symbols, which are, by definition, polysemic and relativistic because they convey different meanings. Durkheim and Mauss were among the first scholars to pick up the age-old philosophical idea about the ways human beings conceive of time, space, causality, unity, plurality, and so on. Their ideas are elaborated in an article entitled “De quelques formes primitives de classification: contribution à l'étude des représentations collectives,” published in L'Année sociologique (1903) and translated in English as Primitive Classification (1963). The importance of this publication lies in the fact that some of the issues illustrated here were eventually discussed in greater depth in structuralist social theories that emerged several decades later; moreover, it may be regarded as an early contribution to the sociology of knowledge and to sociological epistemology. The central argument of their essay is that there exists a connection between the classification of natural phenomena and the social order. The act of classifying ... log in or subscribe to read full text