On Non-Reductive Explanations of Religion : Self-reflexivity and the Boundaries of Rationality
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11210%2F19%3A10409621" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11210/19:10409621 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=xNHv8BVK6w" target="_blank" >https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=xNHv8BVK6w</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
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Alternative languages
Result language
čeština
Original language name
Jak náboženství vysvětlovat nereduktivně : Hranice racionality a sebereflexivita
Original language description
The paper is a response to a Czech book by Juraj Franek, who argues that there are only two ways of theorizing religion: the "naturalistic" one, which sees religion as an illusion and explains it by reducing it to non-religious terms, and the "protectionist" one, which sees religious experience as something irreducible that can only be understood in a specific sui generis manner. Contra Franek, I show that there is a third way, one that explains religion in non-religious terms without reducing it. The key to this kind of non-reductive explanations is the way theories react to their own limitations. A reductive explanation is one that attempts to fully subordinate reality to its own categories, refusing to accept the existence of some aspects of it that are unpredictable and cannot be reduced to rational algorithms. A non-reductive explanation, on the other hand, is one that grants reality the right to resist full conceptual grasp by ever surprising us with its ceaseless abundance and creativity. A non-reductive explanation may explicitly thematize these unfathomable aspects of reality (Turner's conception of liminality being a classic example), or it may just implicitly grant them, mapping various social, psychological, or cognitive mechanisms without seeing these as exhaustively capturing the essence of religious phenomena (in this sense a large part of anthropological explanation of religion may be said to be implicitly non-reductive). The non-reductive approach is dialogical, denying the hegemonic role of the Western rational discourse and seeing the study of other discourses as an opportunity for encountering other possibilities of being, and thus for reflecting the rationalistic self-delusions of modernity. In this way it questions the post-Enlightenment myth of disenchanted secularism, self-reflexively confronting us with the non-rational roots of our own (post-)modern world.
Czech name
Jak náboženství vysvětlovat nereduktivně : Hranice racionality a sebereflexivita
Czech description
The paper is a response to a Czech book by Juraj Franek, who argues that there are only two ways of theorizing religion: the "naturalistic" one, which sees religion as an illusion and explains it by reducing it to non-religious terms, and the "protectionist" one, which sees religious experience as something irreducible that can only be understood in a specific sui generis manner. Contra Franek, I show that there is a third way, one that explains religion in non-religious terms without reducing it. The key to this kind of non-reductive explanations is the way theories react to their own limitations. A reductive explanation is one that attempts to fully subordinate reality to its own categories, refusing to accept the existence of some aspects of it that are unpredictable and cannot be reduced to rational algorithms. A non-reductive explanation, on the other hand, is one that grants reality the right to resist full conceptual grasp by ever surprising us with its ceaseless abundance and creativity. A non-reductive explanation may explicitly thematize these unfathomable aspects of reality (Turner's conception of liminality being a classic example), or it may just implicitly grant them, mapping various social, psychological, or cognitive mechanisms without seeing these as exhaustively capturing the essence of religious phenomena (in this sense a large part of anthropological explanation of religion may be said to be implicitly non-reductive). The non-reductive approach is dialogical, denying the hegemonic role of the Western rational discourse and seeing the study of other discourses as an opportunity for encountering other possibilities of being, and thus for reflecting the rationalistic self-delusions of modernity. In this way it questions the post-Enlightenment myth of disenchanted secularism, self-reflexively confronting us with the non-rational roots of our own (post-)modern world.
Classification
Type
J<sub>SC</sub> - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the SCOPUS database
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
60304 - Religious studies
Result continuities
Project
<a href="/en/project/EF16_019%2F0000734" target="_blank" >EF16_019/0000734: Creativity and Adaptability as Conditions of the Success of Europe in an Interrelated World</a><br>
Continuities
P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)<br>I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace
Others
Publication year
2019
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Name of the periodical
Religio
ISSN
1210-3640
e-ISSN
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Volume of the periodical
27
Issue of the periodical within the volume
2
Country of publishing house
CZ - CZECH REPUBLIC
Number of pages
38
Pages from-to
163-200
UT code for WoS article
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EID of the result in the Scopus database
2-s2.0-85084490543