Max Weber studied religion from an economic perspective in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, his most famous work. As a major figure in sociology, he has no doubt influenced later sociologists of religion.
Emile Durkheim also holds continuing influence as one of the "fathers of sociology." He explored Protestant and Catholic attitudes and doctrines regarding suicide in his work Suicide. Later, he wrote his most memorable work on religion, Elementary Forms of the Religious Life.
Notwithstanding the long interest in the study of religion, the academic discipline Religious Studies is relatively new. Dr. Chris Partridge notes that the "first professorships were established as recently as the final quarter of the nineteenth century."
In the nineteenth century, the study of religion was done through the eyes of science. Max Muller wrote in his Introduction to the Science of Religion (1873): "...the duty of those who have devoted their life to the study of the principal religions of the world in their original documents, and who value and reverence it in whatever form it may present itself, to take possession of this new territory in the name of true science."
Partridge writes that "by the second half of the twentieth century the study of religion had emerged as a prominent and important field of academic enquiry." He cites the growing distrust of the empiricism of the nineteenth century and the growing interest in non-Christian religions and spirituality coupled with convergence of the work of social scientists and that of scholars of religion as factors involved in the rise of Religious Studies.
In the 1960's and 1970's, the term "religious studies" became common and interest in the field increased. New departments were founded and major and influential journals of religious studies were started (e.g.. Religious Studies and Religion). In the forward to Approaches to the Study of Religion, Ninian Smart wrote that "in the English-speaking world [religious studies] basically dates from the 1960s, although before then there were such fields as 'the comparative study of religion', the 'history of religion', the 'sociology of religion' and so on..."
In the 1980s, in both Britain and America, "the decrease in student applications and diminishing resources in the 1980s led to cut backs affecting religious studies departments." (Partridge) Later in the decade, religious studies began to pick up as a result of integrating religious studies with other disciplines and forming programs of study that mixed the discipline with more utilitarian study.
Although philosophy has long been used in evaluation of religious claims (i.e. Augustine and Pelagius's debate concerning original sin), the rise of Scholasticism in the 11th century, which represented "the search for order in intellectual life" (Russell, 170), more fully integrated the Western philosophical tradition (with the introduction of translations of Aristotle) in religious study.
Western philosophy of religion is differentiated from the many Eastern philosophical traditions by generally being written from an third party perspective. The scholar need not be a believer. Theology stands in contrast to the philosophy of religion in that, generally, the scholar is first and foremost a believer employing both logic and scripture as evidence. At least one theologian has noted that one can study and analyze a symphony to understand it in great detail, but it is the listening that is of greatest significance.
There is some amount of overlap between subcategories of religious studies and the discipline itself. Religious studies seeks to study religious phenomena as a whole, rather than be limited to the approaches of its subcatagories.
Although not a widely accepted discipline within religious studies, neurological findings in regard to religious experience may very well become of more widespread interest to scholars of religion. Scientific investigators have used a SPECT scanner to analyze the brain activity of both Christian contemplatives and Buddhist meditators, finding them to be quite similar (Newberg, et. al.).
Fritjof Capra (The Tao of Physics) and others have noted parallels between Quantum mechanics (particularly Bell's theorem) and various religious traditions, especially Vedanta. Philosopher Ken Wilber avers that modern physics neither proves nor even supports a mystical worldview. However he also states that the founders of relativity and quantum theory were nearly all mystics, who understood that science is no longer antithetical to such views. (Wilber, preface)
In part due to Husserl's influence, "phenomenology" came to "refer to a method which is more complex and claims rather more for itself than did Chantepie’s mere cataloguing of facts." (Partridge) Husserl argued that the foundation of knowledge is Consciousness. He recognized "how easy it is for prior beliefs and interpretations to unconsciously influence one’s thinking, Husserl’s phenomenological method sought to shelve all these presuppositions and interpretations." (Partridge) Husserl introduced the term "eidetic vision" to describe the ability to observe without "prior beliefs and interpretations" influencing understanding and perception.
His other main conceptual contribution is the idea of the "epoch": setting aside metaphysical questions and observing phenomena in and of themselves. Husserl "sought to place philosophy on a descriptive and scientific basis." (Partridge)
Partridge examines the most systematic and thorough example of phenomenology, Gerardus van der Leeuw’s Religion in Essence and Manifestation (1933):
- Firstly, argues van der Leeuw, the student of religion needs to classify the religious phenomena into distinct categories: e.g. sacrifice, sacrament, sacred space, sacred time, sacred word, festivals, and myth.
- Secondly, scholars then need to interpolate the phenomena into the their own lives. That is to say, they need to empathetically (Einfuhlung) try and understand the religion from within....The life examined by the religious studies scholar, insists van der Leeuw, needs to "acquire its place in the life of the student himself who should understand it out of his inner self."
- Thirdly, van der Leeuw stresses perhaps the fundamental phenomenological principle, namely epoch, the suspension of value-judgements and the adoption of a neutral stance.
- Fourthly, scholars needs to clarify any apparent structural relationships and make sense of the information. In so doing, they move towards a holistic understanding of how the various aspects of a religion relate and function together.
- Fifthly, this leads naturally to a stage at which "all these activities, undertaken together and simultaneously, constitute genuine understanding [Verstehen]: the chaotic and obstinate 'reality' thus becomes a manifestation, a revelation" (eidetic vision).
- Sixthly, having thus attained this general grasp, there is a continual need to make sure that it tallies with the up-to-date research of other disciplines, such as archaeology, history, philology etc. For van der Leeuw, as for other phenomenologists, the continual checking of one’s results is crucial to the maintenance of scholarly objectivity. In order to avoid degeneration into fantasy, phenomenology must always feed on facts.
- Finally, having gone through the above six stages, the phenomenologist should be as close as anyone can be to an understanding of the 'meaning' of the religious phenomena studied and be in a position to relate his understanding to others.
Although phenomenology may seem naive, most phenomenologists are aware of the fact that understanding is asymptotic and there will never be complete and absolute understanding. By setting aside metaphysical issues (such as a Christian phenomenologist would do with monotheism/polytheism while studying Hinduism), phenomenologists keep religious studies separate from theology and (hopefully) decrease their bias and come away with a more accurate picture.
Seven generally agreed upon features of phenomenology are as follows:
- Phenomenologists tend to oppose the acceptance of unobservable matters and grand systems erected in speculative thinking;
- Phenomenologists tend to oppose naturalism (also called objectivism and positivism), which is the worldview growing from modern natural science and technology that has been spreading from Northern Europe since the Renaissance;
- Positively speaking, phenomenologists tend to justify cognition (and some also evaluation and action) with reference to what Edmund Husserl called Evidenz, which is awareness of a matter itself as disclosed in the most clear, distinct, and adequate way for something of its kind;
- Phenomenologists tend to believe that not only objects in the natural and cultural worlds, but also ideal objects, such as numbers, and even conscious life itself can be made evident and thus known;
- Phenomenologists tend to hold that inquiry ought to focus upon what might be called "encountering" as it is directed at objects and, correlatively, upon "objects as they are encountered" (this terminology is not widely shared, but the emphasis on a dual problematics and the reflective approach it requires is);
- Phenomenologists tend to recognize the role of description in universal, a priori, or "eidetic" terms as prior to explanation by means of causes, purposes, or grounds; and
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- Phenomenologists tend to debate whether or not what Husserl calls the transcendental phenomenological epochę and reduction is useful or even possible.
For the more general philosophical movement of phenomenology, see /entries/phenomenology/.