Religion as Dialogical Resource: A Socio-cultural Approach

American Journal of Theology and Philosophy , 2022

In the following article, I aim to discuss three separate linkages in William James’s overall philosophy of religion. James’s philosophy of religion is based thoroughly on his radical empiricism, and this is the uniting thread often missed in contemporary scholarship. Radical empiricism makes it possible to link 1) his criticism of both representational metaphysics and theology and that philosophy through James must take to heart the lack of access both representative metaphysics and theology conventionally claimed, and 2) the affective ground on which both philosophy and religion have operated for James, especially in his “Will to Believe” argument, and 3) how understanding the affective ground informs a thoroughly empiricist philosophy of religion that moves through his treatment of religious themes (e.g. his mysticism in The Varieties of Religious Experience) and how this affective ground emerges in the body and action.

Keanean Journal of the Arts , 2020

In the following chapter, I develop the thesis that religion and science occupy two separate purposes. This account is inspired by William James’s pragmatic philosophy of religion and my account gives pride of place to religion and spiritual practices. While in keeping with James, I move beyond James to suggest that perhaps the true purpose of religion is not in conflict with science at all, but to adjust our consciousness to the greater totality and creatively foster the conditions for that to happen. In thinking this, I also contemplate some possible implications as to what such an interpretation of religion means at least for religion in the United States.

interest shown in the articles, and the fact that the subject has since then been steadily growing, seem to warrant the presentation of the results in a more permanent and generally accessible form.

2017

Some remarks about psychology of religion meant as a specific and autonomous domain are reported. The need of defining the object of investigation (religion) in a proper way and of defending the peculiarity of the approach (psychology) against the neurobiological and sociological reductionisms is stressed. The psychologist is interested not in religion itself, but in what occurs in human mind when religion is encountered within a culture (that is, religiosity). It is argued that religion is different from spirituality, search for meaning, mindfulness and so on since it is characterised by the subjective conviction to be in relation with the Transcendent. Such a conviction is expressed in beliefs, feelings, interpersonal relationships, rituals, normative behaviours. On one hand these aspects concern individual experience and, on the other hand, they are instantiated in a specific culture, with its own institutions, symbols and language, which develop in a given spatial-temporal conte...

This book would never have been written had I not been honored with an appointment as Gifford Lecturer on Natural Religion at the University of Edinburgh. In casting about me for subjects of the two courses of ten lectures each for which I thus became responsible, it seemed to me that the first course might well be a descriptive one on “Man’s Religious Appetites,” and the second a metaphysical one on “Their Satisfaction through Philosophy.” But the unexpected growth of the psychological matter as I came to write it out has resulted in the second subject being postponed entirely, and the description of man’s religious constitution now fills the twenty lectures. In Lecture XX I have suggested rather than stated my own philosophic conclusions, and the reader who desires immediately to know them should turn to pages 501–509, and to the “Postscript” of the book. I hope to be able at some later day to express them in more explicit form. In my belief that a large acquaintance with particulars often makes us wiser than the possession of abstract formulas, however deep, I have loaded the lectures with concrete examples, and I have chosen these among the extremer expressions of the religious temperament. To some readers I may consequently seem, before they get beyond the middle of the book, to offer a caricature of the subject. Such convulsions of piety, they will say, are not sane. If, however, they will have the patience to read to the end, I believe that this unfavorable impression will disappear; for I there combine the religious impulses with other principles of common sense which serve as correctives of exaggeration, and allow the individual reader to draw as moderate conclusions as he will. My thanks for help in writing these lectures are due to Edwin D. Starbuck, of Stanford University, who made over to me his large collection of manuscript material; to Henry W. Rankin, of East Northfield, a friend unseen but proved, to whom I owe precious information; to Theodore Flournoy, of Geneva, to Canning Schiller of Oxford, and to my colleague Benjamin Rand, for documents; to my colleague Dickinson S. Miller, and to my friends, Thomas Wren Ward, of New York, and Wincenty Lutoslawski, late of Cracow, for important suggestions and advice. Finally, to conversations with the lamented Thomas Davidson and to the use of his books, at Glenmore, above Keene Valley, I owe more obligations than I can well express. Harvard University, March, 1902

2022

The psychology of religion has stemmed from mainstream psychology. The increased interest by psychologists to study religion from a scientific perspective gave rise to the study of religion from a psychological point of view. This essay endeavors to establish the history of psychology of religion; the major historical developments and methodological approaches used by the American and European scholars. The essay acknowledges the interesting journey the field of psychology of religion and spiritualties has taken from a philosophical conception to psychology. It highlights the methodological challenges it has and still faces from the American and European perspectives. The psychology of religion is both an interesting and challenging field, which has undergone a lot of changes, denials, and shortcomings because of the nature of religion and spiritualties. However, this article establishes that a tremendous job has been done in both American and European efforts.

Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 2003

Versions of this article were delivered as the 2002 William James Lecture on Religious Experience at Harvard Divinity School and at a colloquium on William James at Columbia University.

To the question of what the comparative study of religion had to gain from the psychological approach, the answer might have been that both were merely alternative approaches to more or less the same material, and both were attempting to account for the origin and nature of religion as an important aspect of the working of the human mind.1 The psychology of religion emerged as a discipline in the nineteenth century, just as various other approaches to religion as an object of study were similarly gaining attraction. While other theorists (such as Marx, Durkheim, and Weber) were interested in religion as a social phenomenon, the primary focus of the psychological approach to religion is the way in which religion operates in the mind of the individual, primarily the mental states, motivation and attitudes found in religious context.2 This paper is an attempt to analyse the psychological approach in the study of religion, its analysis in the process of origin of primitive religion and contributions made by William James, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung on these studies, along with a critical remark on these approaches with conclusion.

Right at the beginning of the Varieties, James makes it clear that he will address only “first-hand and original forms of [religious] experience” —or (individual) religiousness —, factually putting into brackets (collective) religion qua “second-hand religious life”. This focus could be “handed according to many sets of ideas” ; it will be contextualized here with the concept of non-rationality exploited in the Pluralistic Universe. The argument unfolds in three epochs, each one involving two steps, a definitional one, exploiting James’ concepts themselves, and an interpretational one, expanding their horizon.

2005

2017

The paper suggests that both Wittgenstein in his later period and James in the Varieties of Religious Experience put forward a view of religious belief which is very close to epistemic relativism. This is not to say, however, that they expressly considered the relativist account of religious belief as a philosophical goal to be pursued. In the interpretation proposed in this paper, epistemic relativism is rather a (contingent) by-product of their common attitude towards pluralism and anti-reductionism in philosophy.

International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 2003

Fieldwork in Religion, 2005

In this volume Steven Sutcliffe explores the significance of 'qualitative empiricism' as a common ground across the field of Religious Studies. The collection of 15 revised papers, originally given by scholars of religion from diverse backgrounds at conferences of the British Association for the Study of Religion from the early 1990s onward, marks the fiftieth anniversary of BASR and exemplifies the use of qualitative empirical methods. In a Foreword Peggy Morgan, a former president of the Association traces its history. Sutcliffe makes an impressive analysis of reasons for the ongoing crisis in Religious Studies in the UK and in an Afterword James Cox suggests the way forward for the Study of Religions. Steven Sutcliffe associates the methodological mix of contributors and of BASR with Ninian Smart's polymethodic approach, which he compares to 'an intellectual feast with an open invitation to table' (p. xviii). He explains how the view that the Study of Religion/s is a 'field' rather than a 'discipline' is a model more compatible with the postmodern emphasis on polyvocality. He alerts us to the longstanding demarcation issue as to who should be excluded from the 'feast' on methodological grounds. Sutcliffe points to various internal and external power relations which contribute to predicament of the Study of Religions. These include, firstly, the historical oppositional construction of naturalistic and scientific analysis of religions versus theological and confessional standpoints which has privileged theology; secondly, the power of economic forces and intellectual fashion; and thirdly the historically masculine hegemony within Religious Studies. The chapters, divided into two parts, represent methodological currents in BASR scholarship. Part One comprises seven chapters on comparative theory and method and Part Two, eight case studies of particular traditions which utilize qualitative empiricism. In Chapter One Marion Bowman defends the descriptive basis of phenomenological fieldwork in the frequently undervalued field of assessing and representing 'vernacular' religion. She presents this methodology in terms of a case study of folk religion and Catholicism in Newfoundland. In Chapter Two Chris Arthur draws attention to 'media blindness' in religious studies normalizing a print media approach and assuming a 'Protestant' methodological basis. Arthur examines the way in which media actively produces discourses rather than disseminating them. Peter Antes, in Chapter Three examines the construction of experience in religious and non-religious traditions. He argues that experiences, both religious and non-religious, are produced by practitioners as an ongoing contextual process. The next three chapters problematize terminologies frequently used in Religious Studies. In Chapter Four, Terence Thomas explores the recent usage of the term 'sacred' and 'the sacred' contrasting his findings with the concept of sacrality within the Hebrew Bible. He argues that the use of the term 'the sacred' has a theological and ethnocentric basis, especially in relation to the Judao-Christian traditions or comparative works made from a Judaeo-Christian standpoint. In Chapter Five Kim Knott considers contemporary debates about

2014

1 This paper is a critical examination of William James's doctrine of pure experience, with special reference to the way it underpins his attempt to individualize religion in The Varieties of Religious Experience. In the first section I review James's doctrine of pure experience, following the texts "Does 'Consciousness' Exist?" and "A World of Pure Experience." Then I discuss some of the issues that seem to be inherent in the doctrine. Namely, I shall argue that (1) the notion of pure experience presupposes an untenable distinction between what is added by the mind and what is given to the mind;

The Pluralist, 2015