Abstract
Here I intend to outline an unfavourable assessment of one element in the Durkheimian approach to religion and hope to develop some methodological claims as to the 'limits' beyond which sociological studies of religion cannot go. These claims have, I think, a wider significance and nence the underlying theme is a concern with what 'can be said' in sociological discourse. Throughout interest will centre on two propositions: (i) Durkheimians claim to be 'positivist' yet, allowing for ambiguities surrounding this term, advance views on religion which are inconsistent with that positivism. (ii) Even if it were possible to be consistent in claiming adherence to positivism whilst seeking knowledge of the reality 'behind' religious phenomena, any search for that reality ought (a logical not a moral imperative) to be inadmissible in sociology. As far as the two greatest contributors to the sociology of religion are concerned I agree with Runciman that
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