What do you think?
Rate this book
Captive Gods: Religion and the Rise of Social Science
Philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah explores how early social scientists developed our modern understandings of society through their theories of religion
The foundations of modern social science were built on the study of religion, the acclaimed thinker Kwame Anthony Appiah argues. Delving into the intellectual currents of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, he investigates how formative thinkers—notably Edward Burnett Tylor, Émile Durkheim, Georg Simmel, and Max Weber—grappled with the concepts of society and religion as interdependent categories. Appiah shows how their efforts to define religion, or evade the task, mark the power and limitations of social thought in ways that persist among theorists today. Religion was not merely an object of study but a framework through which early social scientists established sociology as a discipline.
Appiah also examines more recent work in both interpretive sociology and evolutionary and cognitive psychology about the mechanisms through which communities form beliefs and values—while underscoring the enduring significance of these earlier debates for contemporary social thought. Throughout, he intertwines storytelling, historical analysis, and philosophical reflection to show how our ideas about society and culture have been, and continue to be, forged in dialogue with religious questions.
The foundations of modern social science were built on the study of religion, the acclaimed thinker Kwame Anthony Appiah argues. Delving into the intellectual currents of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, he investigates how formative thinkers—notably Edward Burnett Tylor, Émile Durkheim, Georg Simmel, and Max Weber—grappled with the concepts of society and religion as interdependent categories. Appiah shows how their efforts to define religion, or evade the task, mark the power and limitations of social thought in ways that persist among theorists today. Religion was not merely an object of study but a framework through which early social scientists established sociology as a discipline.
Appiah also examines more recent work in both interpretive sociology and evolutionary and cognitive psychology about the mechanisms through which communities form beliefs and values—while underscoring the enduring significance of these earlier debates for contemporary social thought. Throughout, he intertwines storytelling, historical analysis, and philosophical reflection to show how our ideas about society and culture have been, and continue to be, forged in dialogue with religious questions.
344 pages, Hardcover
Published October 7, 2025
14 people are currently reading
115 people want to read
About the author
Kwame Anthony Appiah
113 books440 followersKwame Anthony Appiah, the president of the PEN American Center, is the author of The Ethics of Identity, Thinking It Through: An Introduction to Contemporary Philosophy, The Honor Code and the prize-winning Cosmopolitanism. Raised in Ghana and educated in England, he has taught philosophy on three continents and is a former professor at Princeton University and currently has a position at NYU.
Series:
* Sir Patrick Scott Mystery (as Anthony Appiah)
Series:
* Sir Patrick Scott Mystery (as Anthony Appiah)
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
No one has reviewed this book yet.