Ambassador Laurence Steinhardt: From New York to Prague

The present article first traces Ambassador Steinhardt's career from his days at Columbia University (1909–1915) to his successful legal career as a partner at Guggenheimer, Untermyer & Marshall in New York City. It then studies Steinhardt's diplomatic career that commenced in 1933, when President Roosevelt sent him as U.S. minister in Sweden. This was followed by appointments—as U.S. ambassador—in Peru and the Soviet Union. His wartime service as U.S. ambassador to Turkey is examined closely since the lessons learned there would have been applicable at his next post, Prague, Czechoslovakia.     

Ambassador Laurence Steinhardt: From New York to Prague

The present article first traces Ambassador Steinhardt's career from his days at Columbia University (1909-1915) to his successful legal career as a partner at Guggenheimer, Untermyer & Marshall in New York City. It then studies Steinhardt's diplomatic career that commenced in 1933, when President Roosevelt sent him as U.S. minister in Sweden. This was followed by appointments—as U.S. ambassador—in Peru and the Soviet Union. His wartime service as U.S. ambassador to Turkey is examined closely since the lessons learned there would have been applicable at his next post, Prague, Czechoslovakia.     

Ist Durkheims Religionsverständnis mit dem Glauben vereinbar?

Does Emile Durkheim’s sociology of religion pose a challenge to the faithful? Durkheim said no in debate with contemporary non-believers and believers, portraying religion not as mere illusion but as consisting in moral forces that command, comfort and strengthen the faithful, forces generated and regenerated within them by the collective effervescence of rituals. Thus empowered, the faithful imagine in symbolic form “the society of which they are members and the obscure yet intimate relations they have with it”. Durkheim’s answer is shown to have three components: a critique of naturist and animist “error theories” of religion; a method of “deep interpretation”, uncovering the reality beneath the symbolism; and an explanation of why the meaning of religion thus interpreted should have been for so long unacknowledged by the faithful. It is argued that, in principle, they can, on certain assumptions, accommodate his sociology of religion. But this, in turn, makes key assumptions and claims that have been seriously questioned: notably, that “religion” names a unified phenomenon and that Durkheim’s definition captures it. Recent revised “Durkheimian” accounts of religious thought and practice are considered, accounts that abandon these assumptions and also his “social realism”, while seeking to preserve his insights. It is argued that these too need not directly challenge religious belief in the way that the cognitive science of religion does.