Pub Date : 2020-07-09DOI: 10.1163/15700682-12341491
Robert A. Yelle
The article reviews two recent books on comparison in the study of religion authored by prominent scholars. Long out of vogue, comparison now must be defended as a or even the central methodology for religious studies. Both philology and critical theory have collaborated to undermine the universalist assumptions on which earlier grand comparisons in the study of religion based themselves. The question is whether the two books considered here manage to rescue comparison from its critics. My reading here suggests that a more robust defense may be needed.
{"title":"Chastening and Disciplining Comparison: Bruce Lincoln and Oliver Freiberger on the Comparative Method in the Study of Religion","authors":"Robert A. Yelle","doi":"10.1163/15700682-12341491","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700682-12341491","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The article reviews two recent books on comparison in the study of religion authored by prominent scholars. Long out of vogue, comparison now must be defended as a or even the central methodology for religious studies. Both philology and critical theory have collaborated to undermine the universalist assumptions on which earlier grand comparisons in the study of religion based themselves. The question is whether the two books considered here manage to rescue comparison from its critics. My reading here suggests that a more robust defense may be needed.","PeriodicalId":44982,"journal":{"name":"Method & Theory in the Study of Religion","volume":"32 1","pages":"482-490"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/15700682-12341491","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49424054","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-07-09DOI: 10.1163/15700682-12341501
K. Szocik, K. Messick
The scientific study of nonreligion has been described as being ‘under the spell’ of religion because the vast majority of research investigates nonbelief in respect to belief. This has resulted in a number of problematic theories, including the leading cognitive science of religion (CSR) theory that claims that religious belief is innate, and so to be a nonbeliever is to violate cognitive predispositions. This article critically analyzes innateness theories and encourages the development of further theories that incorporate social, adaptive, cultural, evolutionary, and biological factors in addition to cognitive contributors. This article details the roles of adaptive and functional aspects of nonbelief, the influence of credibility enhancing displays (CRED s), and the influence of cultural context on nonbelief as they are not sufficiently explained by CSR theories. It is proposed that future theories study nonreligion in its own right, instead of respective to religion, so that a broader range of unique characteristics can be accounted for without inaccurately and inadequately phrasing theories in terms of naturalness.
{"title":"Breaking the Spell: Reconsidering Cognitive and Evolutionary Approaches to Atheism","authors":"K. Szocik, K. Messick","doi":"10.1163/15700682-12341501","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700682-12341501","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The scientific study of nonreligion has been described as being ‘under the spell’ of religion because the vast majority of research investigates nonbelief in respect to belief. This has resulted in a number of problematic theories, including the leading cognitive science of religion (CSR) theory that claims that religious belief is innate, and so to be a nonbeliever is to violate cognitive predispositions. This article critically analyzes innateness theories and encourages the development of further theories that incorporate social, adaptive, cultural, evolutionary, and biological factors in addition to cognitive contributors. This article details the roles of adaptive and functional aspects of nonbelief, the influence of credibility enhancing displays (CRED s), and the influence of cultural context on nonbelief as they are not sufficiently explained by CSR theories. It is proposed that future theories study nonreligion in its own right, instead of respective to religion, so that a broader range of unique characteristics can be accounted for without inaccurately and inadequately phrasing theories in terms of naturalness.","PeriodicalId":44982,"journal":{"name":"Method & Theory in the Study of Religion","volume":"32 1","pages":"299-327"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/15700682-12341501","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42836105","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-07-09DOI: 10.1163/15700682-12341503
D. Wiebe
This response replies to the previous papers.
本答复答复了以前的文件。
{"title":"A Response to My Critics","authors":"D. Wiebe","doi":"10.1163/15700682-12341503","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700682-12341503","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This response replies to the previous papers.","PeriodicalId":44982,"journal":{"name":"Method & Theory in the Study of Religion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/15700682-12341503","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43436089","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-06-30DOI: 10.1163/15700682-12341485
Brad Stoddard
Seven researchers in the growing field of the cognitive science of religion recently claimed to have documented the unique neural correlates of spirituality separate from and independent of religion. They claimed that spirituality is therefore a natural part of human cognition and suggested that they proved definitively that spirituality is substantively different than religion. Using insights developed by scholars associated with the critical religion approach to the academic study of religion, this article identifies a series of methodological errors that undermine the researchers’ project and that potentially impacts the larger academic study of the cognitive science of religion.
{"title":"Constructing Spirituality in the Cognitive Science of Religion","authors":"Brad Stoddard","doi":"10.1163/15700682-12341485","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700682-12341485","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Seven researchers in the growing field of the cognitive science of religion recently claimed to have documented the unique neural correlates of spirituality separate from and independent of religion. They claimed that spirituality is therefore a natural part of human cognition and suggested that they proved definitively that spirituality is substantively different than religion. Using insights developed by scholars associated with the critical religion approach to the academic study of religion, this article identifies a series of methodological errors that undermine the researchers’ project and that potentially impacts the larger academic study of the cognitive science of religion.","PeriodicalId":44982,"journal":{"name":"Method & Theory in the Study of Religion","volume":"32 1","pages":"288-298"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/15700682-12341485","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42496826","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-06-30DOI: 10.1163/15700682-12341489
R. Gordan
This essay considers the study of Judaism within the framework of Lincoln and Freiberger’s calls for comparative studies. As a minority religion, Judaism usually requires comparative thinking, as scholars consider Judaism within the context of a majority religion. Study of post-WWII American Judaism, in particular, invites comparison, because it marks the high-tide era of “Judeo-Christianity,” in which Judaism was newly considered America’s “third faith,” on a purportedly equal status with Protestantism and Catholicism, thus inviting comparision between the three religions and other traditions outside the small circle of midcentury “American religions.” This postwar, tri-faith status of Judaism reveals some of the costs and benefits of thinking comparatively: when comparison is undertaken with an eye toward creating or maintaining equality among religions, the results may include erasure of distinctions between traditions. The study of Judaism demonstrates some of the politics and ideological motivations of comparative thinking about religion, as well as its potential risks and benefits as explained by Lincoln and Freiberger.
{"title":"Inevitably Comparative, but Not Inevitably Positive: the Study of Jews and Judaism within the Field of Religious Studies","authors":"R. Gordan","doi":"10.1163/15700682-12341489","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700682-12341489","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This essay considers the study of Judaism within the framework of Lincoln and Freiberger’s calls for comparative studies. As a minority religion, Judaism usually requires comparative thinking, as scholars consider Judaism within the context of a majority religion. Study of post-WWII American Judaism, in particular, invites comparison, because it marks the high-tide era of “Judeo-Christianity,” in which Judaism was newly considered America’s “third faith,” on a purportedly equal status with Protestantism and Catholicism, thus inviting comparision between the three religions and other traditions outside the small circle of midcentury “American religions.” This postwar, tri-faith status of Judaism reveals some of the costs and benefits of thinking comparatively: when comparison is undertaken with an eye toward creating or maintaining equality among religions, the results may include erasure of distinctions between traditions. The study of Judaism demonstrates some of the politics and ideological motivations of comparative thinking about religion, as well as its potential risks and benefits as explained by Lincoln and Freiberger.","PeriodicalId":44982,"journal":{"name":"Method & Theory in the Study of Religion","volume":"32 1","pages":"475-481"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/15700682-12341489","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45981525","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-06-30DOI: 10.1163/15700682-12341490
Craig R. Prentiss
This essay compares Bruce Lincoln’s Apples and Oranges with Oliver Freiberger’s Considering Comparison and applies lessons derived from these works to my own research in the fields of religion and race. Attention to both authors’ concerns with the relationship between definitions and theories, as well as positionality and scope, result in my confusion as to whether the categories of “religion” and “race” can be profitably compared without being trapped in a world of tautology. Yet their shared emphases on comparison as a heuristic enterprise may open a path for making useful claims in this area of research by means of comparative method.
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Pub Date : 2020-06-30DOI: 10.1163/15700682-12341488
Seth Schermerhorn
The recent publication of two excellent volumes—Bruce Lincoln’s Apples and Oranges and Oliver Freiberger’s Considering Comparison—provides an auspicious moment to reflect on and interrogate the nature of comparison within religious studies generally, as well as a variety of subfields, including the academic study of indigenous religious traditions. This article carefully examines both books, analyzes Lincoln’s interpretations of Native American religious traditions within broader comparative frameworks, and discusses several recent developments regarding comparison in the academic study of indigenous religious traditions.
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Pub Date : 2020-06-30DOI: 10.1163/15700682-12341492
O. Freiberger
The present issue’s review symposium on comparison comprises six thoughtful and stimulating essays in which the authors, in conversation with Bruce Lincoln’s Apples and Oranges (2018) and my Considering Comparison (2019), reflect on the comparative method and on how it relates to their work. Their reflections are explorative, productive, thought-provoking, and they also criticize and challenge aspects of our books in constructive ways, each from the perspective of their own field of expertise. In this response I discuss the methodological questions that each essay raised for me and, at times, propose a potential way forward. The symposium shows that exploring the comparative method can be useful and rewarding not only for explicit cross-cultural research, but also for research projects that do not seem comparative at first glance. I argue that since studying religion—a highly comparative category—is inherently comparative, the methodology of comparison deserves proper attention.
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Pub Date : 2020-06-19DOI: 10.1163/15700682-12341484
K. Merinda Simmons
As it appears, the back and forth between CSR and critical theory pays a great deal of attention to religion as a classificatory and explanatory object but has thus far left alone another category—that of the human. Scholars in other fields, however, have long demonstrated the human subject to be a slippery trope all its own whose rhetorical and analytical value is not at all a given. It is on the evolution and contemporary state of this vein of criticism that I will focus, then, in an attempt to shift the register of the current conversation about CSR.
{"title":"Religious Studies for Cyborgs: Cognitive Science and Social Theory after Humanism","authors":"K. Merinda Simmons","doi":"10.1163/15700682-12341484","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700682-12341484","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000As it appears, the back and forth between CSR and critical theory pays a great deal of attention to religion as a classificatory and explanatory object but has thus far left alone another category—that of the human. Scholars in other fields, however, have long demonstrated the human subject to be a slippery trope all its own whose rhetorical and analytical value is not at all a given. It is on the evolution and contemporary state of this vein of criticism that I will focus, then, in an attempt to shift the register of the current conversation about CSR.","PeriodicalId":44982,"journal":{"name":"Method & Theory in the Study of Religion","volume":"32 1","pages":"276-287"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/15700682-12341484","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44257875","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-06-10DOI: 10.1163/15700682-12341487
M. Horii
This essay starts with reference to “grapefruits” in Oliver Freiberger’s (2019) Considering Comparison and to “apples” and “oranges” in Bruce Lincoln’s (2018) Apples and Oranges: Explorations In, On and With Comparison. It disagrees with Freiberger when he compares “grapefruits” with some generic categories in Religious Studies including “shrine.” The category of “shrine” resembles more “fruits,” for example, because two shrines could have completely different genealogies, just like apples and oranges, but still belong to the same generic category. Then, the essay compares the categories of “religion” and “tree.” The boundary between “religion” and “nonreligion” is as arbitrary as that of “tree” and “non-tree.” At the same time, “religion” and “nonreligion” share common characteristics just like “tree” and “non-tree” do. Given this, it concludes with the suggestion that, when the “religiousness” of ostensibly “nonreligious” modernity is articulated, the category “religion” functions as a useful rhetorical tool to subvert modernity’s claim of universality and factual reality.
本文首先参考了奥利弗·弗赖伯格（Oliver Freiberger）（2019）的《考虑比较》（Thinking Comparison）中的“葡萄柚”，以及布鲁斯·林肯（Bruce Lincoln）（2018）的《苹果和橙子：比较中的探索》（apples and oranges:Explorations in，On and with Comparison。当Freiberger将“葡萄柚”与宗教研究中的一些通用类别（包括“神龛”）进行比较时，他不同意这一观点。例如，“神龛“的类别更像“水果”，因为两个神龛可能有完全不同的谱系，就像苹果和橙子一样，但仍然属于同一个通用类别。然后，本文对“宗教”和“树”的分类进行了比较，当表面上的“非宗教”现代性的“宗教性”被阐明时，“宗教”这一范畴就成为了一种有用的修辞工具，可以颠覆现代性对普遍性和事实现实的主张。
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