Prorokova M.N. “Scared Sociology of Roger Caillois”

Abstract: This article is dedicated to the analysis of the fundamental for the entire French sociological school as a whole, including the sociological college, the founder of which was Roger Caillois, notions of sacred and profane. Reviewing this dialectical dyad in the context of various spheres and conditions of life the society (holiday, carnival, war, game), Caillois comes to the conclusion that the very attempt of demarcation of the sacred and profane areas is extremely important for the formation of public and religious consciousness of a human and all of the processes of socialization. According to Caillois, sacred and profane depict for the individual and the society the spheres that are holy or cursed, allowed or prohibited, experienced or unexperienced, in control or beyond control of the human influence. The goal of this work consists in the reconstruction of views of the French thinker upon the questions associated with sacred and profane, as well as their impact upon the establishment of the social and religious consciousness. There are very few extensive research within the Russian humanitarian science that are dedicated to such complicated and ambiguous phenomenon as the sacred or holy. Therefore, the analysis of understanding of the phenomenon of an important for the philosophical thought of the XX century persona pf Roger Caillois represents great interest and value. Correlation between the sacred and the secular in R. Caillois’ concept reflects the correlation between the freedom of will (profane, familiar, and usual for a human area, his “living world) and fate, providence, and tradition formed beyond the personal will of an individual (sacred) – the area of the highest and incomprehensible, simultaneously tempting and terrifying. Unlike certain contemporaries, particularly his colleague Georges Bataille, Caillois assesses the separation of the spheres of sacred and profane as a positive phenomenon, which is the guarantor of stability and carries constructive functions for the human community.

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