Naturalism as Metaphysics, Reduction without Fears

The methodological implications of the motives that underlie the study of religion and, more particularly, the academic study of religion have not, I think, received the attention they deserve. They are of the utmost importance, however, for the differences of motivation between the study of religion legitimated by the modern university and the scholarly study of religion that antedates it, sponsor radically different, if not mutually exclusive, approaches to its study. In asking why the study of religion is undertaken as an academic exercise – which is, after all, a comparatively recent development – I shall be attempting to delineate, to some extent, the relation of motive to method in what has come to be called Religious Studies. In clarifying that relation I hope also to show that Religious Studies – that is, the academic study of religion – must be a vocation in very much the same sense that Max Weber speaks of science as a vocation and, therefore, that such study must take as merely preliminary a ‘religious studies’ that is concerned only to ‘understand’ rather than to explain the phenomenon of Religion.

Religious Studies ReviewVolume 39, Issue 4 p. 235-235 Method and Theory Failure and Nerve in the Academic Study of Religion: Essays in Honor of Donald Wiebe. – Edited by William E. Arnal, Willi Braun, and Russell T. McCutcheon. Sheffield, UK: Equinox Publishing, 2012. Pp. xii + 243. $99.95. Neil George, Neil George York UniversitySearch for more papers by this author Neil George, Neil George York UniversitySearch for more papers by this author First published: 09 December 2013 https://doi.org/10.1111/rsr.12072Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL No abstract is available for this article. Volume39, Issue4December 2013Pages 235-235 RelatedInformation

Disciplinary axioms, boundary conditions and the academic Study of Religion: Comments on Pals and Dawson

“Accidental Favorites,” written by Steven Ramey, asks what scholars of the academic study of religion can do to reorder their teaching and research in light of a shift away from topical treatments of data towards critical assessments of processes of classification and identification. This “Afterword” offers final words of guidance that methodological applicability is difficult, daunting, and nearly impossible without reflexive recognition that the work done by scholars often plays favorites within contemporary culture wars. So what to do? As much inspired by the ideas giving purchase to this volume, while at the same time offering more guidance on how such ideas might find fertile methodological soil, the Afterword concludes by arguing for an attempt to avoid the many labels (i.e. Hindu/Sikh, black/white, religious/secular) that take such focus on the study of religion historically and today. Many scholars play “accidental favorites”—with their data, their discourses. Scholars of the academic study of religion, therefore, should be wary and cautious of their accidental favorites moving forward.

Different religious traditions offer apparently very different pictures of the world. How are we to make sense of this radical diversity of religious belief? In this book, Professor Godlove argues that religions are alternative conceptual frameworks, the categories of which organise experience in diverse ways. He traces the history of this idea from Kant to Durkheim, and then proceeds to discuss two constraints on the diversity of all human judgment and belief: first that human experience is made possible by shared, a priori rules, and second, that as language-users we must presuppose that we hold the vast bulk of our beliefs in common. Given these unavoidable constraints, it is clear how religions may offer encompassing symbolic systems that often diverge dramatically from one another. 'An original and brilliant critique of Durkheim and Kant from within the framework of Davidson's semantic theory. This book is required reading for anyone interested in the academic study of religion, and the problems of relativism and the diversity of belief.' -- Hans H. Penner, Dartmouth CollegeDifferent religious traditions offer apparently very different pictures of the world. How are we to make sense of this radical diversity of religious belief? In this book, Professor Godlove argues that religions are alternative conceptual frameworks, the categories of which organise experience in diverse ways. He traces the history of this idea from Kant to Durkheim, and then proceeds to discuss two constraints on the diversity of all human judgment and belief: first that human experience is made possible by shared, a priori rules, and second, that as language-users we must presuppose that we hold the vast bulk of our beliefs in common. Given these unavoidable constraints, it is clear how religions may offer encompassing symbolic systems that often diverge dramatically from one another. 'An original and brilliant critique of Durkheim and Kant from within the framework of Davidson's semantic theory. This book is required reading for anyone interested in the academic study of religion, and the problems of relativism and the diversity of belief.' -- Hans H. Penner, Dartmouth College

In this article I dispute the claim, made by several contemporary scholars, thatSpinoza was a naturalist. ‘Naturalism’ here refers to two distinct but related positions in contemporary philosophy. The first, ontological naturalism, is the view that everything that exists possesses a certain character (variously defined) permitting it to be defined as natural and prohibiting it from being defined as supernatural. I argue that the only definition of ontological naturalism that could be legitimately applied toSpinoza's philosophy is so unrestrictive as to tell us nothing about the content of his ideas. The second, methodological naturalism, is the view that the natural sciences are the best means of finding out substantial truths about the concrete world. I present some historical research showing thatSpinoza's way of positioning himself with respect to other philosophers in theDutchRepublic casts very serious doubt on the claim that he was a methodological naturalist. This adds further weight to arguments that have already been made against the naturalist reading ofSpinoza.

Can neural representations be naturalized? Current debates surrounding the naturalization of representation in neuroscience typically characterize this project in terms of one of three options: Methodological Naturalism, Ontological Naturalism, or the belief that both types of naturalism provide support for, and constraints on, each other to drive inquiry. In this paper, I argue that all three of these options are problematic. The two projects of naturalism cannot be pulled apart from one another, nor can one act as effective support/constraint on the other. The relationship between these projects of naturalism is far more complex, nuanced, and interdependent than is typically thought. I highlight how this influences current debates regarding the nature of representation in neuroscientific practice.

In this paper I examine the uneasy intersection between ‘religion’, ‘gender’ and ‘postcoloniality’ as it is staged in the sub-field of religion and gender within religious studies and theology. Noting the lack of sustained attention in this field to those postcolonial challenges that might question the prioritization of gender as the site from which critique should be originated, and suggesting that this neglect might compromise the assumption that, because of its alignment with the politics of the marginal, it is comparatively less implicated in colonial knowledge formations, I argue that scholars of religion and gender risk perpetuating imperialist figurations found elsewhere in the academic study of religions. I propose the figure of the catachresis, as theorized by Gayatri Spivak, as a potential step towards displacing those European concept-metaphors and value-codings that both derive from imperialist ideologies and sustain the fiction operational within much, though not all, religion and gender scholarship of a generalizable or normative epistemic subjectivity. I suggest these ideologies ultimately prevent an encounter with the women and men who exist beyond this mode of production and whose priorities may be configured entirely differently to those that seem currently to inform and produce the intellectual itineraries of the field.

The three pioneers, Albert Moore, Colin Brown and Lloyd Geering, played a national role in changing the appreciations of religion in New Zealand. The chapter traces the growth of the New Zealand university programmes in Religious Studies and the different approaches they have taken to the academic study of religion (with some comparative observations on the situation in Australia). The success of Religious Studies in New Zealand has led to a dramatic increase in staff and student numbers and areas of specialist teaching and research. Topics explored include the future of the 'discipline' in New Zealand; the nature of the area of study; the contribution of New Zealanders to the international field; the public role of Religious Studies academics; the relationship of Religious Studies and Theology; and the post-September 11 context of the academic study of religion. Keywords: Albert Moore; Colin Brown; Lloyd Geering; New Zealand; religious studies; theological studies

Although debate continues over the place of reductionist and non‐reductionist approaches within the academic study of religion, much of the debate falters due to a failure to appreciate the necessity of ‘understanding’ for the effectiveness of ‘explaining’ cultural phenomena. This article addresses this very problem, reassessing the role of the insider within a methodological reductionist approach within religious studies. Assessing the delimitation of critical analysis to ‘knowable knowledge’ construction, teasing out theoretical problems with verification, and recognising the role of data construction in first‐order description prior to second‐order theorisation, this article will argue that the insider’s perspective is indeed an essential aspect of the critical analytical approach. Unlike phenomenological or irreductive approaches, however, the insider's perspective is limited to the stage of data construction (‘understanding’). At the secondary level of theorisation, the relative relations bringing together data within an analytical study takes precedence (‘explanation’). Thus, within a methodological reductionist approach (distinguished from ontological reductionism), there can be no explanation without understanding.

This article illustrates the value of computer modeling and simulation (CMS) for linking theory and data in the academic study of religion, focusing on ways in which scholars in religious studies and the humanities can benefit by collaboratively engaging in this relatively new and radically transdisciplinary methodology. I begin by briefly introducing CMS and describing some of its recent uses in analyses of religious phenomena. The second part provides a case study – an agent-based model (ABM) designed to simulate and forecast changes in religiosity and existential security in Europe (Gore et al. 2018). The main research question guiding the construction and validation of this model was: What are some of the conditions under which – and mechanisms by which – religiosity declines in contemporary European populations? I highlight one of the main research findings from the simulation experiments on the model. Finally, I briefly explore some of the material and methodological implications of the development and deployment of such models for the academic study of religion.

We can gain valuable new perspectives on the Bush administration's policies in Iraq and the domestic response to them by applying the historical and analytical-descriptive methods of academic religious studies. The article analyzes the work that has already been done along these lines, placing it in the context of broader studies of American religion and culture that cast the U.S. role in the Iraq war in a new light. These works provide a model of scholarship as good citizenship, helping American society understand itself better in a time of war, stimulating the kind of thoughtful debate that is the lifeblood of democracy.

An initial apology to religious insiders in the opening of Hughes' book got this review – of the book and of tensions in public and academic discourse about Islam and the study thereof – started. The book, after the strange initial apology, becomes a highly valuable introduction to a study-of-religion approach to Islam, incorporating both insider and outsider perspectives, including primary sources and critical analyses, and describing the multitude of ‘Muslim identities’ and responses to so-called modernity. Desiderata: a more classical comparative approach to ritual and more nuance around its discussion of women and jihad. Returning to 'apologetics', the review renders a recent Danish debate suggesting scholars of Islam should investigate and expose Islam rather than provide a nuanced and qualified picture in accordance with empirical scientific principles. An example of public ignorance over the role of the scholar of religion, – and yet another example of the necessity of approaching Islam as any other religion, i.e. from a comparative, historical and critical-analytical point of view. Though the book (rightly) suggests that the academic study of religions is more novelty than norm, the reviewer sees no reason, whatsoever, for apologizing for study-of-religion principles and approaches to religion, Islam included.

This article examines historically competing categories of magic and religion and their gendered traces in the history of religious studies. On one hand, we have a genealogy that traces the term, “magic”, back to an early modern European Christianity trying to understand itself through contrast with an imagined heresy that comes to be personified with a woman’s face. On the other, we have contemporary political and religious communities that use the identification as Witches to reverse this version of dichotomous Christian gaze and legitimize religious difference, which also comes to be symbolized by a female body. Between these historical moments we have the beginning of the academic study of religion, the theoretical turn in which Christian-dominant scholarship comes to see itself on a continuum with, rather than opposed to, different religions, as first characterized by cultural evolution theories about the origins of religion. Especially given the field’s theological roots, examining the constructed relationships between religion and magic, both of which represent crucial foci for early theorists, through the analytical lens of gender, which does not, provides opportunities to surface implicit assumptions of the current field about what is and is not worth studying.

Whether as a historian finding solutions to unresolved problems or as a scientist finding the causes for events and actions, Luther Martin’s primary focus has been to get to the roots of the religious impulse in human existence. This collection of essays from scholars of his own generation and from his best students cover the three major strands of his work: the Greco-Roman world, cognitive science approaches to explaining religious phenomena and methodological issues in the academic study of religions. The contributions build on the work of Luther Martin and further the ongoing discussion and debate within these areas of religious studies.