On Justifying the Study of Religion

2021 ◽  
pp. 3-17
Author(s):  
Richard B. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Ascetic Ideal ◽  
Methodological Standard ◽  
Value Neutrality ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Normative Ideals ◽  
Regime Of Truth

This chapter takes up the question whether the study of religion can be justified and indicates why scholars of religion deny themselves reasons for tackling that question. It uses as its point of departure Max Weber’s lecture, “Science as a Vocation” as articulating a methodological standard for studying religion, one that privileges value-neutrality and avows an “ascetic ideal” (following Nietzsche). It is argued that this ideal poses obstacles to making justificatory claims on behalf of studying religion and fortifies a repressive scholarly conscience in the field’s regime of truth. The chapter adds that this conscience is not entirely repressive and notes the presence of quixotic, haphazard appeals to normative ideals that materialize in the study of religion. Lastly, it sketches the book’s alternative to the ascetic ideal and describes ideas from moral philosophy that inform the book’s critical and constructive argument.

Epilogue

2021 ◽  
pp. 303-306
Author(s):  
Richard B. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Religious Studies ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
The Future ◽  
Value Neutrality ◽  
Regime Of Truth

The epilogue concludes the book by clarifying how Critical Humanism makes possible an ethics of religious studies. Positioned against an episteme that draws its sustenance from Reformation, Enlightenment, and post-Enlightenment thinking, Critical Humanism provides reasons that enable present and future generations to grasp the values of studying religion and provides a model of reasoning that can break the spell of the field’s regime of truth of value-neutrality. It thereby enables scholars to overcome a long-standing repression of desire and discover humanistic excellences according to which motives for studying religion are desirable and worthy of attachment and transmission. Seen in this way, the epilogue argues, Critical Humanism is a vocation. It allows scholars to recommend religious studies for the present and in ways that make possible hope for the future.

Distributive Justice

1983 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Fried
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Basic Premise ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
1 John ◽  
Principles Of Justice ◽  
Point Of Departure

1. John Rawls' A Theory of Justice represented a rare intellectual event. It advanced a fresh, detailed and powerful conception of political economy, and rooted that conception in an elaborately worked out political and moral philosophy. Rawls' two principles of justice, with the celebrated maximin standard of distributive justice, represent the point of departure for any serious discussion of this subject. The details of Rawls' proposal are too well known to require summary. Instead, I shall call attention to the basic premise of his work and to a significant anomaly in it, as setting the stage for my own proposal.

Why Study Religion?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard B. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Social Criticism ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Environmental Responsibility ◽  
Critical Reasoning ◽  
Alternative Framework ◽  
Cultural Fluency ◽  
Value Neutrality ◽  
The Way ◽  
Regime Of Truth

This book asks, can the study of religion be justified? It poses this question on the view that scholarship in religion, especially work in “theory and method,” is preoccupied with matters of methodological procedure and is thus inarticulate about the goals that can justify the study of religion and motivate scholarship in the field. For that reason, it insists, the field suffers from a crisis of rationale. The book identifies six prevailing methodologies in the field, each of which it critically examines as symptomatic of this crisis, on the way toward offering an alternative framework for thinking about purposes for studying religion. Shadowing these methodologies is a Weberian scientific ideal for studying religion, one that privileges value-neutrality. This ideal poses obstacles to making justificatory claims on behalf of studying religion and fortifies a repressive conscience about thinking normatively within the field’s regime of truth. After making these points, the book describes an alternative framework, Critical Humanism, especially how it theorizes about the ends rather than the means of humanistic scholarship and offers a basis for thinking about the ethics of religious studies as held together by four values: post-critical reasoning, social criticism, cross-cultural fluency, and environmental responsibility. Ordered to such purposes, the book argues, the study of religion can imagine itself as a valuable and desirable enterprise so that scholars of religion can relax their commitment to matters of methodological procedure and avow the values of studying religion.

scholarly journals Koranen som træningsprogram: Et case study af sura 18

2016 ◽  
pp. 173
Author(s):  
Mette Bjerregaard Mortensen
Keyword(s):  
World View ◽  
Ascetic Ideal ◽  
The World ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Reward And Punishment

The article is a case study of a single narrative in the Qur’an’s sura 18. In this article, I explore and discuss the ethical dimensions of the Qur’anic world view. The article takes its point of departure in an outline of the pre-dominant eschatological strand in the Qur’an and different Qur’anic perceptions about reward and punishment. Then, I discuss the moral implications of the idea of divinely sanctioned deeds and actions as well as the existence of a Judgment Day. In light of this discussion, and based on an analysis of sura 18, I argue that Qur’anic piety can be seen as encompassing a particular ascetic ideal. Rather than dictating a radical secession from the world in terms of ascetic denial, the ascetic ideal authorizes participation in worldly life.

The Contribution of Pavlov's Typology of CNS Properties to Personality Research

1997 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Strelau
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Animal Species ◽  
Special Significance ◽  
The West ◽  
Personality Dimensions ◽  
Personality Research ◽  
Personality Theories ◽  
Strength Of Excitation ◽  
Point Of Departure

This paper presents Pavlov's contribution to the development of biological-oriented personality theories. Taking a short description of Pavlov's typology of central nervous system (CNS) properties as a point of departure, it shows how, and to what extent, this typology influenced further research in the former Soviet Union as well as in the West. Of special significance for the development of biologically oriented personality dimensions was the conditioned reflex paradigm introduced by Pavlov for studying individual differences in dogs. This paradigm was used by Russian psychologists in research on types of nervous systems conducted in different animal species as well as for assessing temperament in children and adults. Also, personality psychologists in the West, such as Eysenck, Spence, and Gray, incorporated the CR paradigm into their theories. Among the basic properties of excitation and inhibition on which Pavlov's typology was based, strength of excitation and the basic indicator of this property, protective inhibition, gained the highest popularity in arousaloriented personality theories. Many studies have been conducted in which the Pavlovian constructs of CNS properties have been related to different personality dimensions. In current research the behavioral expressions of the Pavlovian constructs of strength of excitation, strength of inhibition, and mobility of nervous processes as measured by the Pavlovian Temperament Survey (PTS) have been related to over a dozen of personality dimensions, mostly referring to temperament.

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