Rationality and the Study of ReligionJeppe Sinding Jensen, Luther H. Martin Does rationality, the intellectual bedrock of all science, apply to the study of religion? Religion, arguably the most subjective area of human behaviour, has particular challenges associated with its study. Attracting crowd-healers, conjurers, the pious and the prophetic alongside comparativists and sceptics, it excites opinions and generalisations whilst seldom explicitly staking out the territory for the discussions in which it partakes. Increasingly, scholars argue that religious study needs to define and critique its own field, and to distinguish itself from theology and other non-objective disciplines. Yet how can rational techniques be applied to beliefs and states of mind regarded by some as beyond the scope of human reason? Can these be made empirically testable, or comparable and replicable within academic communities? Can science explicate religion without reducing it to mere superstition, or redefine its truth in some empirical but meaningful way? Featuring contributions from leading international experts including Donald Wiebe, Roger Trigg and Michael Pye, Rationality and the Study of Religion gets under the surface of the religious studies discipline to expose the ideologies beneath. Reopening debate in a neglected yet philosophically significant field, it questions the role of rationality in religious anthropology, natural history and anti-scientific theologies, with implications not only for supposedly objective disciplines but for our deepest attitudes to personal experience. 'Interesting and important. |
Contents
Introduction | 9 |
Anthropology and | 24 |
LévyBruhl Participation and Rationality | 44 |
Copyright | |
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Rationality and the Study of Religion Jeppe Sinding Jensen,Luther H. Martin No preview available - 2003 |
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action anthropology argues argument assumption of rationality Azande behaviour Buchowski Buddhism Cambridge U.P. Chinese claims cognitive cognitivist commonsense comparative religion concepts concerning construction context criteria critical critique cultural discourse distinction Durkheim Emile Durkheim emotions Enlightenment entities epistemology evaluation Evans-Pritchard example explanation exploration of religion Geertz Gellner hermeneutic historians historical religions historicism history of religions Horton human idea intellectual interpretation Jonathan Z knowledge language Lévy-Bruhl logical Lucien Lévy-Bruhl meaning metaphysical methodological modern moral naïve physics normative notion of rationality objective ontological participation perspective philosophy philosophy of science political possible postmodernism postmodernist practice primitive problem question rationalist reality reason reflection relativism relativist religious models religious studies scholars scientific scientism scientists semantics sense social facts social sciences society sociology sociology of science student of religion study of religion supernatural theoretical theory things thought Tominaga traditions Trigg truth understanding University values Wade-Giles Western Wiebe writes