Critical Humanism and the Study of Religion: A Statement and Defense
This essay offers a statement and defense of four core claims of my work, Why Study Religion? Those are: (1) the field of religious studies is preoccupied by procedural methods for studying religion to the neglect of values and purposes that can justify its intellectual practices; (2) this preoccupa...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Brill
2024
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| In: |
Method & theory in the study of religion
Year: 2024, Volume: 36, Issue: 2, Pages: 206-218 |
| Further subjects: | B
Theory
B Critical Humanism B Justification B Method B study of religion B Normativity |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | This essay offers a statement and defense of four core claims of my work, Why Study Religion? Those are: (1) the field of religious studies is preoccupied by procedural methods for studying religion to the neglect of values and purposes that can justify its intellectual practices; (2) this preoccupation operates under a “regime of truth” that is anti-normative; (3) this regime of truth buckles under the pressure of repressed values and smuggles in crypto-normative judgments and commitments; and (4) this preoccupation with method can be remedied by attending to purposes that can justify the study of religion, which I call Critical Humanism. Critical Humanism aims to expand the moral imagination and comprises four values: post-critical reasoning, social criticism, cross-cultural fluency, and environmental responsibility. After describing the book’s main claims, I take up critiques expressed by Michael Stausberg, et al. in their essay, “A Normative Turn in Religious Studies?” |
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| ISSN: | 1570-0682 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Method & theory in the study of religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/15700682-bja10120 |