The Social Origins of Thought: Durkheim, Mauss, and the Category Project

By studying how different societies understand categories such as time and causality, the Durkheimians decentered Western epistemology. With contributions from philosophy, sociology, anthropology, media studies, and sinology, this volume illustrates the interdisciplinarity and intellectual rigor of the category project which did not only stir controversies among contemporary scholars but paved the way for other theories exploring how the thoughts of individuals are prefigured by society and vice versa.