scholarly journals A Reificação Da Religião: A Religião Da Sociologia / The Reification of Religion: Religion in Sociology

Numen ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Oneide Bobsin
Keyword(s):  
Open Field ◽  
Sociology Of Religion ◽  
Social Function ◽  
The Other ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World

RESUMOSem desconsiderar a contribuição da Sociologia da Religião, o texto pretende problematizar tendências científicas que, ao analisarem a função social das religiões nas sociedades modernas, elaboram um conhecimento reificado dos fenômenos religiosos. Esta problematização só é possível a posteriori porque é próprio das ciências questionarem a si e a seus pressupostos. Nesta perspectiva, o texto problematizará pressupostos teóricos marxistas e positivistas, revelando, de certa forma, compromissos com uma visão de mundo que pretende ser universal, mas que ignora os seus limites históricos e se fechaem si. A coisificação das religiões, que reduz o outro, o estranho, ao igual a si, é um risco permanente da análise dos acontecimentos e dos fenômenos. Neste horizonte provocativo, a Sociologia da Religião, como campo aberto, autoriza-nos a perguntar pela religião da sociologia. Desta forma, ela transcende a condição de objeto a que foi submetida. Palavras-chave: Reificação; religião; saberes ignorados.ABSTRACTWithout disregarding the contribution of the Sociology of Religion, this text seeks to problematize scientific tendencies that, as they analyze the social function of religion in modern societies, elaborate a reified knowledge of religious phenomena. This problematization is only possible a posteriori becauseit is proper to the sciences to question themselves and their presuppositions. In this perspective the text will problematize marxist and positivist theoretical presuppositions, revealing, in a certain form, commitments to a vision of the world that seeks to be universal, but ignores its historical limits and closes in on itself. The objectification of religions, that reduces the other, the foreign, as an equal to itself is a permanent risk in the analysis of happenings and phenomena. In this provocative horizon, Sociology of Religion, as an open field, permits us to ask about the religion of sociology. In this form, it transcends the condition of object to which it was submited.Keywords: Reification; religion, ignored knowledge

Benson and Miller in Perspective

1979 ◽  
Vol 3 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 242-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Kuklick
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Applied Science ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Knowledge ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
Stock Of Knowledge

Despite differences in coloration Miller and Benson are birds of a feather. Although he is no Pollyanna, Miller believes that there has been a modest and decent series of advances in the social sciences and that the most conscientious, diligent, and intelligent researchers will continue to add to this stock of knowledge. Benson is much more pessimistic about the achievements of yesterday and today but, in turn, offers us the hope of a far brighter tomorrow. Miller explains Benson’s hyperbolic views about the past and future by distinguishing between pure and applied science and by pointing out Benson’s naivete about politics: the itch to understand the world is different from the one to make it better; and, Miller says, because Benson sees that we have not made things better, he should not assume we do not know more about them; Benson ought to realize, Miller adds, that the way politicians translate basic social knowledge into social policy need not bring about rational or desirable results. On the other side, Benson sees more clearly than Miller that the development of science has always been intimately intertwined with the control of the environment and the amelioration of the human estate.

Post-Yugoslav Serbian Literature and Its Roots in the Social and Political Changes

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-118
Author(s):  
Milan Orlić
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
The Other ◽  
Cultural Discourse ◽  
World Language ◽  
Cultural Paradigms ◽  
The Social ◽  
Post Modernism ◽  
The World ◽  
Socialist Realist ◽  
The One

Post-Yugoslav literature and culture came out of the stylistic formations of Yugoslav modernism and postmodernism, in the context of European cultural discourse. Yugoslav literature, which spans the existence of “two” Yugoslavias, the “first” Yugoslavia (1928–1941) and the “second” socialist Yugoslavia (1945–1990), is the foundation of various national literary and cultural paradigms, which shared the same or similar historical, philosophical and aesthetic roots. These were fed, on the one hand, by a phenomenological understanding of the world, language, style and culture, and on the other, by an acceptance of or resistance to the socialist realist aesthetics and ideological values of socialist Yugoslav society. In selected examples of contemporary Serbian prose, the author explores the social context, which has shaped contemporary Serbian literature, focusing on its roots in Serbian and Yugoslav 20th century (post)modernism.

Participation and Causality

2014 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 294-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory W. Dawes
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Cognitive Dimension ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Modes Of Thought ◽  
Experimental Attitude

A recurring debate within discussions of religion, science, and magic has to do with the existence of distinct modes of thought or “orientations” to the world. The thinker who initiated this debate, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, distinguished two such orientations, one characterized as “participatory” and the other as “causal.” The present essay attempts to clarify what a participatory orientation might involve, making use of the social-psychological category of a “schema.” It argues that while the attitude to which Lévy-Bruhl refers is to be distinguished from an explicit body of doctrine, it does have a cognitive dimension and can embody causal claims. It follows that if such a distinction is to be made, it is not helpfully characterized as a contrast between participation and causality. A better distinction might be that between a mythical and an experimental attitude to the world.

scholarly journals Realities to be-come: on Cosmopolitics

2013 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Schillmeier
Keyword(s):  
Gilles Deleuze ◽  
The Other ◽  
Felix Guattari ◽  
Possible World ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Isabelle Stengers ◽  
Key Terms

To assume that all things we want to describe – humans and non-humans alike – can be done so properly only in terms of 'societies', requires a contrast – a momentum of cosmopolitics – to the very abstract distinctions upon which our classical understanding of sociology and its key terms rests: 'The social' as defined in opposition to 'the non-social', 'society' in opposition to 'nature'. The concept of cosmopolitics tries to avoid such modernist strategy that A. N. Whitehead called 'bifurcation of nature' (cf. Whitehead 1978, 2000). The inventive production of contrasts names a cosmopolitical tool which does not attempt to denounce, debunk, replace or overcome abstract, exclusivist oppositions that suggest divisions as 'either…or'-relations. Rather, as the Belgian philosopher of science Isabelle Stengers stresses, 'the contrast will have to be celebrated in the manner of a new existent, adding a new dimension to the cosmos' (Stengers 2011: 513). Cosmopolitics, then, engages with 'habits we experiment with in order to become capable of new experiences' (Stengers 2001: 241) and opens up the possibility of agency of the non-expected Other, the non-normal, the non-human, the non-social, the un-common. 'The Other is the existence of a possible world', as Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (1994: 17-18) have put it. It is 'the condition for our passing from one world to another. The Other (...) makes the world go by.'

Anti-sage

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Culliney ◽  
David Jones
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Educational Administration ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
New York University ◽  
Terrorist Organizations ◽  
Politics And Government ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The World

Chapter 10 proceeds in light of our suggestion that sagely behavior is freely chosen, benign, yet powerful, and seeks cooperation in the world in ways that are positive, progressive, nurturing, and constructive in nature. This chapter, however, accounts for people who have been gifted with or have assiduously developed powers of rapport or charisma, achieving notable fractal congruence in the social, political, or economic life of institutions or communities but who have gone the other way. This phenomenon over a wide range of scale can elevate those who become destructive or aggrandizing to the ultimate detriment of society. Numerous followers can gravitate to the kind of socially-fractally-adept individual that we call an anti-sage. The chapter discusses examples of the antisage phenomenon in cults and terrorist organizations such as the People’s Temple and Aum Shinrykyo. In this narrative pertinent expressions of human selfness include: Protean self vs. fundamentalist self and parochial altruism. Also explored are politics and government, notably the administration of George W. Bush, creed-based religions, particularly Christianity and Islam, and aggrandizement in educational administration, such as that of John Sexton’s presidency of New York University.

The Credulity of Conspiracy Theorists

2018 ◽  
pp. 422-431
Author(s):  
Brian L. Keeley
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Inquiry ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
Social World ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Rational Inquiry

Where does entertaining (or promoting) conspiracy theories stand with respect to rational inquiry? According to one view, conspiracy theorists are open-minded skeptics, being careful not to accept uncritically common wisdom, exploring alternative explanations of events no matter how unlikely they might seem at first glance. Seen this way, they are akin to scientists attempting to explain the social world. On the other hand, they are also sometimes seen as overly credulous, believing everything they read on the Internet, say. In addition to conspiracy theorists and scientists, another significant form of explanation of the events of the world can be found in religious contexts, such as when a disaster is explained as being an “act of God.” By comparing conspiratorial thinking with scientific and religious forms of explanation, features of all three are brought into clearer focus. For example, anomalies and a commitment to naturalist explanation are seen as important elements of scientific explanation, although the details are less clear. This paper uses conspiracy theories as a lens through which to investigate rational or scientific inquiry. In addition, a better understanding of the scientific method as it might be applied in the study of events of interest to conspiracy theorists can help understand their epistemic virtues and vices.

African Indigenous Religions

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter E.A. van Beek
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Indigenous Religion ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
The World ◽  
Other World ◽  
Indigenous Religions ◽  
The Village

There is not one African indigenous religion (AIR); rather, there are many, and they diverge widely. As a group, AIRs are quite different from the scriptural religions the world is more familiar with, since what is central to AIRs is neither belief nor faith, but ritual. Exemplifying an “imagistic” form of religiosity, these religions have no sacred books or writings and are learned by doing, by participation and experience, rather than by instruction and teaching. Belonging to specific local ethnic groups, they are deeply embedded in and informed by the various ecologies of foragers, pastoralists, and horticulturalists—as they are also by the social structures of these societies: they “dwell” in their cultures. These are religions of the living, not so much preparing for afterlife as geared toward meeting the challenges of everyday life, illness and misfortune, mourning and comforting—but also toward feasting, life, fertility, and togetherness, even in death. Quiet rituals of the family contrast with exuberant public celebrations when new adults re-enter the village after an arduous initiation; intricate ritual attention to the all-important crops may include tense rites to procure much needed rains. The range of rituals is wide and all-encompassing. In AIRs, the dead and the living are close, either as ancestors or as other representatives of the other world. Accompanied by spirits of all kinds, both good and bad, harmful and nurturing, existence is full of ambivalence. Various channels are open for communication with the invisible world, from prayer to trance, and from dreams to revelations, but throughout it is divination in its manifold forms that offers a window on the deeper layers of reality. Stories about the other world abound, and many myths and legends are never far removed from basic folktales. These stories do not so much explain the world as they entertainingly teach about the deep humanity that AIRs share and cherish.

scholarly journals New Legal Realism, Empiricism, and Scientism: The Relative Objectivity of Law and Social Science

2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREW LANG
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Empirical Knowledge ◽  
Legal Realism ◽  
The Social ◽  
Complicated Form ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Historical Accounts ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

AbstractIn this article, I suggest that one of the central characteristics of New Legal Realism is the productive tension between empiricist and pragmatist theories of knowledge which lies at its core. On one side, new realist work in its empiricist posture seeks to use empirical knowledge of the world as the basis on which to design, interpret, apply, and criticize the law. On the other, in its pragmatist moments, it explicitly draws attention to the social and political contingency of any claims to empirical knowledge of the world, including its own. As a consequence, it is distinctive of much scholarship in the New Legal Realist vein that it continually enacts creative syntheses of different philosophies of truth in an attempt to be, in Shaffer's words, ‘positivist . . . interpretivist, and legal realist all at once’. The first part of this article draws on existing historical accounts of legal realism briefly to trace the problematic and ambiguous place of scientism in the legal realist tradition. Then, in the second and more important part of the article, I argue that the ambivalence of the legal realists’ vision has left us, in certain contexts, with a complicated form of mixed legal-scientific governance which has proved remarkably and surprisingly resilient in the face of late twentieth century critiques of scientific objectivity. This may be one of the most enduring legacies of the ‘old’ legal realists for those today who work in the New Legal Realist vein.

Both 'One' and 'Other': Environmental Cosmopolitanism and the Politics of Hybridity in Costa Rica

2008 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Johnson ◽  
Suzanne Clisby
Keyword(s):  
Costa Rica ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Small Group ◽  
Social Exclusion ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World

Cosmopolitans are frequently characterized as living and perceiving the world and their environment from a distance. Drawing on ethnographic work among a small group of Western migrants in Costa Rica, we complicate this portrayal in a number of ways. First, we demonstrate that these people think in similar kinds of ways as social theorists: they too are worried about living at a distance from place and are seeking what is, in their way of reckoning, a more engaged relationship with their surroundings. Second, however, we explore the social context and corollaries of these migrants' attempts to bring together a putatively "modern/cosmopolitan" way of relating to place and a "traditional/place-based" way of relating to surroundings. Specifically, we demonstrate how migrant claims to transcend the differences between "tradition" and "modernity" create new forms of social exclusion as they, both literally and figuratively, come to claim the place of "the other."

scholarly journals The Feminist Utopia in Prema Shah and Rokeya S. Hossain: Linking the Real to the Ideal

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-88
Author(s):  
Komal Prasad Phuyal
Keyword(s):  
Social Reality ◽  
The Other ◽  
New Order ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Islamic Society ◽  
Role Of Men ◽  
Feminist Utopia

Prema Shah’s “A Husband” and Rokeya S. Hossain’s “Sultana’s Dream” present two complementary versions of women’s world: the real in Shah and the imagined in Hossain aspire to make the other complete. The worldview that each author projects in their texts reasserts the latent spirit of the other one. The embedded interconnectedness between the authors under discussion reveals their unique association and bond of women’s creative unity towards paving a road for the upliftment of women in general. The paper seeks to find out the historical forces leading to the formation of a certain type of bond between these two authors from different historical and socio-cultural realities. Shah locates a typical Nepali woman in the protagonist in the patriarchal order while Hossain pictures the contemporary Bengali Islamic society and reverses the role of men and women. Hossain’s ideal world and Shah’s real world form two complementary versions of each other: despite opposite in nature, each world completes the other. Sultana moves to the world of dream to seek a new order because Nirmala’s world exercises every form of tortures upon the women’s self. Shah exposes the social reality dictating upon the women’s self while Hossain’s protagonist escapes into the world of dream where women control the social reality effectively and successfully. Overall, Shah and Hossain complement each other’s world by presenting two alternative versions of the same reality, creating the feminist utopia.

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