A Study of Religion in a New Key

by Jeppe Sinding Jensen

Overview

What are the global and cross-cultural phenomena of religion anyway? They are not things-in-the-world, not things in themselves, and yet we know they are very real because they constitute the means by which we make up our lives. As thought, language, society and culture are not illusions, neither is religion. This book is about the present plight - and future possibility - of a general and comparative study of religion as a field of inquiry in the human sciences. Jensen proposes a different look at the phenomenon of religion, and perhaps so much of a re-interpretation that it may appear to be a different phenomenon altogether. In his new key, Jensen shifts the attention from metaphysical givens and psychological experiences to the social, symbolic and linguistic constructions of human habitats. Jensen's fundamental ambition is to illustrate how and on what conditions it is possible to study not just specific religions as ethnographic or historical facts, but also to study religion as a general human and social activity. This book is not only meant for those who are theoretically inclined, but also, and perhaps even more so, for those who are not. The Study of Religion in a New Key can be characterized as a handbook for non-philosophers in how to perform a theoretically grounded general and comparative study of religion. Others who will find this book indispensable are historians of religions, anthropologists, philosophers, sociologists and theologians.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9788779340916
Publisher:	Aarhus University Press
Publication date:	12/28/2003
Series:	Studies in Religion Series , #3
Pages:	250
Product dimensions:	6.16(w) x 9.50(h) x 1.28(d)

Table of Contents

	Preface	9
Part I	Preliminaries
Ch. 1	Simple questions - complex answers	21
	Why the timidity?	24
	A problem: The state-of-the-art	26
	On the rise and fall of 'classical phenomenology'	28
	Later contributions: Impasses only?	34
	Is there a new paradigm under way?	42
Ch. 2	Past problems - present solutions: Abolish 'phenomenology'?	45
	Abolish (only) some of phenomenology?	52
	Will new names help?	56
	The 'inescapability' of the phenomenology of religion	59
	The role of theory in classical phenomenological monographs	65
Ch. 3	Rereading the originators	73
	Pierre Daniel Chantepie de la Saussaye	76
	Cornelis P. Tiele	82
	William Brede Kristensen	87
	Phenomenology of religion: A 'method'?	92
	- or a discipline?	95
	The 'essence' of religion: The case of transcendental realism	96
Ch. 4	Paradigms: Comparison and generalization in retrospect	103
	Up from the particular	108
	The three modes of comparison	113
	Universalism and the necessarily general	114
	Evolution: A contested fact	116
	Relativism: The benign alternative?	121
	Comparison: The unavoidable condition	123
Ch. 5	Prescriptive and the normative considerations - Challenges to a study of religion	129
	Normativity in method and morality	130
	Fear of reductionism	134
	Deductions, prescriptions and some misunderstandings thereof	139
	On some reasons of the malaise	143
	Specifying or generalizing: The inherent tension	148
Ch. 6	The study of religion and its model sciences	159
	'Deja vu' or 'altere Ansatze'	162
	Model sciences vs. 'Hilfswissenschaften'	168
	The lesson of linguistics: From diachronic to synchronic	172
	'The revolution in anthropology': From history to function	176
	On generalizations: The testing of theory by theory	179
	Anthropology and linguistics as models sciences	182
	Anthropology: Thriving on comparison - or?	184
	Linguistics and 'the deductive turn'	192
	On to a philosophy of science for comparative religion	197
Part II	Foundations
Ch. 7	Philosophy of science - in the study of religion?	205
	The shaken foundations of 'science'	208
	Philosophies of the human and social sciences	216
	Any philosophy of the study of religion?	218
	Explanation	223
	Explanation and coherence	232
	Explanatory interpretation	236
	Interpretation and deconstruction	241
	On hermeneutics	244
	Life-worlds	249
Ch. 8	Realisms reconsidered: Intuitive, scientific and symbolic	255
	Intuitive realism	259
	Epistemology, culture and semantics	263
	Internal realism and the study of religion	271
	Semantic anti-realism	274
	Why religion matters anyway: Symbolic realism	283
Ch. 9	Social facts: Religion, theory, and science	289
	Social facts and meanings	291
	Theories as social facts	298
	Science as a social fact: The critique	301
	Metaphysics and rationality in the human sciences	305
	Rationality and values	307
	A 'no problem' thesis for the study of religion	316
Ch. 10	Ontology of concepts - concepts of ontology	319
	Essentialism considered	324
	Concepts and constructions	328
	Concepts and many other 'things'	331
	Intensions, extensions and various shades of meaning	338
	Two dimensions of meaning	343
Ch. 11	Relevant relativisms and postmodernisms	353
	Relativisms in anthropology and in the study of religion	356
	On epistemic and judgmental relativism	360
	The many faces of relativism	365
	Escaping from the maze?	370
	Will the real relativist stand up?	374
	'Conceptual relativity', 'internal realism' and relativism	378
	Relativism: A field of contentions	381
	Relevant postmodernisms	392
Part III	Consequences
Ch. 12	On the possibility of the 'science of comparative religion'	407
	The criticisms revisited	409
	Religion as a (non-trivial) social phenomenon	415
	Some epistemological ruminations	420
	Some methodological ruminations	434
	Objectifications	438
	A short catalogue of comparabilities	440
	On formalization and generalization	446
	The study of religion as a narrative activity	449
	Danish summary	455
	Bibliography	461
	Name Index	497
	Subject Index	505