Abandonment Issues: Reflections on Redescription, Rectification, and J.Z. Smith’s “Trading Places”

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-70
Author(s):  
Andrew Durdin
Keyword(s):  
Religious Studies ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
Do So

Abstract I reflect here on Jonathan Z. Smith’s influence on my approach to the study of religion, interweaving these reflections into the outline of a larger argument for the continued critical study of the category of religion—a project central to Smith’s intellectual project. While many have pursued Smith’s denaturalization of the category of religion, few have tried to imagine what Religious Studies might look like without religion as its primary explanatory category. Here I argue that Smith’s notions of redescription and rectification offer clues for how such a methodological shift might work. I do so by looking specifically at Smith’s brief essay “Trading Places” where he explicitly recommends rejecting efforts to theorize “magic.” I argue that not only do his considerations apply to the category of religion but also that the procedures he discusses in “Trading Place” might be understood as a more radical view of redescription and rectification.

‘Religion,’ ‘the Secular’ and the Critical Study of Religion

2011 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 419-442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Engler
Keyword(s):  
Religious Studies ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
History Of Religion ◽  
Critical History ◽  
Il Y A ◽  
History Of ◽  
A Current ◽  
Academic Study

This essay critically engages Timothy Fitzgerald’s Discourse on Civility and Barbarity (2007), arguing that it takes an important step beyond Fitzgerald’s first book, The Ideology of Religious Studies ( 2000 ), in diagnosing a current malaise of the academic study of religion and in modelling a way past this malaise. Highlighting this valuable aspect of the book, I argue, requires correcting certain problems with its argument. Specifically, there is a tension between two overarching goals: writing “a critical history of ‘religion’ as a category,” and criticizing “modern discourses on generic religion.” Once these genealogical and critical projects are brought into more effective alignment, the book models an approach where a properly critical study of religion begins with a contingently and strategically theorized domain of ‘religion’ and explores its relation to other domains—not only ‘the secular.’ Cet essai reconsidère d’un œil critique le livre Discourse on Civility and Barbarity (2007), de Timothy Fitzgerald. Il soutien qu’il donne un pas important au-delà du premier livre de Fitzgerald, The Ideology of Religious Studies ( 2000 ), dans les faits de diagnostiquer une malaise actuelle de l’étude des religions et de modeler une piste alternative. Pourtant, pour accentuer cet aspect important du livre, on doit corriger des problèmes logiques avec son argument. Spécialement, il y a une tension problématique entre les deux buts du livre : l’écriture « d’une histoire critique de ‘religion’ comme une catégorie »; et la critique « des discours modernes sur la religion générique ». Dès que ces projets généalogiques et critiques sont apportés dans une meilleure alignement, le livre modèle une approche de grande valeur : c’est le travail d’une étude proprement critique du concept ‘de religion’ de le suivre où il mène, et d’analyser ses relations avec des autres concepts.

Phenomenology of Religion and the Art of Story-Telling: The Relevance of William Golding'S ‘The Inheritors’ To Religious Studies

1987 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. J. Arthur
Keyword(s):  
Religious Studies ◽  
Story Telling ◽  
Phenomenology Of Religion ◽  
Do So

One of the most extensive yet least conclusive methodological debates within religious studies revolves around the question of what, precisely, the phenomenology of religion is and what contribution it can make to the study of religion. I do not intend to answer this important question here. To do so satisfactorily would require a range of historical, philosophical and methodological inquiry which would go quite beyond the bounds of a single article. My intention in this paper is, by comparison, unambitious. It is to takeoneview of what phenomenology of religion is and to consider an area outside that usually explored by students of religion which can, nonetheless, shed some light on how religions might be studied in a way which is in accordance with the phenomenology of religion so understood. What follows will offer an answer to the question of what contribution one particular understanding of phenomenology might make to the study of religion, but no attempt will be made to establish whether or not this particular understanding ought to be regarded as normative.

Religion and Belief After the Turn to Power: A Response to Craig Martin

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 334-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen S. Bush
Keyword(s):  
Religious Studies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Do So

Abstract The introduction of power as a key analytical concept was a watershed moment in the history of religious studies. But what exactly does it mean to embrace the turn to power? Does it mean giving up on the study of experiences, meanings, and beliefs? Or does it just mean changing how we approach them? In my book, Visions of Religion, I argue that we can retain experience and meaning as meaningful analytical concepts even after the turn to power. We can do so without embracing any of the key assumptions of perennialism or what Craig Martin calls neo-perennialism. In this response to Martin, I show that his categorization of my approach as neo-perennialist is based upon a series of misattributions.

The Ethics of Religious Studies

2021 ◽  
pp. 18-42
Author(s):  
Richard B. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Education ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
Theoretical Justification ◽  
Scientific Disciplines ◽  
Routine Work ◽  
Shadow Cast ◽  
Value Neutrality

This chapter argues that the study of religion lacks an “ethics of religious studies,” by which the author means a theoretical justification of the guild. Focusing on a 1971 report by Claude Welch, Graduate Education in Religion: A Critical Study, it targets Welch’s refusal to provide such a justification and explains its silence by referencing the long shadow cast by Protestant thinking about the dangers of self-justification. It is argued that Welch’s argument erects a firewall between the study of religion and the justification of that study, one that reinforces the commitment to value-neutrality that is described in chapter 1. To explain the field’s preoccupation with methodology, the chapter turns to Stephen Toulmin’s discussion of scientific disciplines and the importance of having a goal as a condition for organizing mature research. It concludes by sketching the outlines of scholarship in religious studies and the distinction between routine work and metadisciplinary work.

Problems in the Study and Teaching of National History in Indonesia

1965 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Nugroho Notosusanto
Keyword(s):  
Critical Study ◽  
National History ◽  
Study And Teaching ◽  
Do So

As far back as 1913, Hoesein Djajadiningrat made a critical study of one of the sources for Indonesian history. He was the first Indonesian to do so. But his work, though important, cannot be properly considered as the beginning of modern Indonesian historiography. This came later.

On some Academic theories of mathematical objects.

1986 ◽  
Vol 106 ◽  
pp. 111-120
Author(s):  
Ian Mueller
Keyword(s):  
Critical Study ◽  
Considerable Part ◽  
Mathematical Objects ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Mathematical Ontology ◽  
Do So

In his critical study of Speusippus Leonardo Tarán (T.) expounds an interpretation of a considerable part of the controversial booksMandNof Aristotle'sMetaphysics. In this essay I want to consider three aspects of the interpretation, the account of Plato's ‘ideal numbers’ (section I), the account of Speusippus’ mathematical ontology (section II), and the account of the principles of that ontology (section III). T. builds his interpretation squarely on the work of Harold Cherniss (C.), to whom I will also refer. I concentrate on T. because he has brought the ideas in which I am interested together and given them a concise formulation; he is also meticulous in indicating the secondary sources with which he agrees or disagrees, so that anyone interested in pursuing particular points can do so easily by consulting his book.

Does the Ontological Argument Beg the Question?

1994 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-310
Author(s):  
P. J. McGrath
Keyword(s):  
Ontological Argument ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Single Argument ◽  
Do So

In his paper ‘Has the Ontological Argument Been Refuted?’ (Religious Studies, 29 (1993), 97–110) William F. Vallicella argues that my attempt to show that the Ontological Argument begs the question is unsuccessful.1 I believe he is wrong about this, but before endeavouring to vindicate my position I must first make clear what precisely is the point at issue between us. The Ontological Argument is not a single argument, but a family of arguments. Newly devised formulations of the argument are frequently put forward by philosophers in an effort to avoid difficulties that have been pointed out in previous versions. As a consequence there is no possibility of a conclusive proof that every form of the argument embodies the same fallacy. Nevertheless, one can, I believe, prove that all the standard versions of the argument embody a certain fallacy and that, given the nature of the argument, it is therefore unlikely that the argument can be formulated in such a way as to avoid this difficulty. What I tried to show in my paper is that the six best-known versions of the argument (the non-model versions of Anselm, Descartes and Leibniz and the modal versions of Malcolm, Hartshorne and Plantinga) all beg the question and that they do so at the same point in the argument, namely when it is asserted that it is possible that an absolutely perfect being exists. It is difficult to see how an ontological argument could be formulated without including this claim as one of its premises, since the distinguishing badge of the argument is the inference from the possibility of an absolutely perfect being to its actuality. It must be unlikely then, if my criticism of these six versions is correct, that there is any way of formulating the argument that avoids this fallacy.

Cans and Counterfactuals

1979 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 489-496
Author(s):  
Douglas N. Walton
Keyword(s):  
Action Theory ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
Apparent Inconsistency ◽  
The One ◽  
Recent Action ◽  
Richard Taylor ◽  
The City ◽  
Do So

In a critical study of some recent action theory Professor James Tomberlin [7] makes some insightful and suggestive remarks concerning the by now well known problem of "Smith and the airplane" formulated by Keith Lehrer and Richard Taylor [3]. While these remarks do significantly advance our knowledge of the nature of the problem, I would like to try to show why the strategy they indicate does not lead to a solution that represents any improvement on the one developed in [1], [8] and [2].The problem of Smith and the airplane is posed by the following apparent inconsistency. Suppose it is now shortly before 3:30 and Smith is at a country airport. The 3:30 plane is the only possible means whereby Smith can arrive at the city at 4:00. There is nothing to prevent Smith from leaving on the 3:30 plane, but he in fact does not do so: Then each of the following statements are true.

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