Category Books

Religion and Reductionism: Essays on Eliade, Segal, and the Challenge of the Social Sciences for the Study of Religion »

Authors: Idinopulos, E. a. Yonan (Editor), Thomas A. Idinopulos
ISBN-13: 9789004098701, ISBN-10: 9004098704
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Brill Academic Publishers, Inc.
Date Published: October 1993
Edition: (Non-applicable)

Author Biography: Idinopulos

Book Synopsis

This volume on Religion and Reductionism grew out of a conference convened in November, 1990, where the participants were asked to respond to the conceptual and methodological problem of reductionism in the academic study of religion. The conference focused on the writings of Robert A. Segal and his defence of reductionism and criticism of Mircea Eliade's non-reductive interpretation of religion.
At the Miami conference some of the most important and enduring questions were raised: (1) What is religion? (2) What is religion and/or religious meaning? (3) How should religion be studied and taught? (4) What are the possibilities and limits of social scientific analyses of religious phenomena? (5) What is reductionism? (6) What is anti-reductionism?
These and other questions on religion and reductionism are widespread and invite serious consideration; they help to illuminate the basic issues that are at the core of any study of the world's major religions.

Booknews

A collection of essays emerging from a November 1990 conference at Miami U., Oxford, Ohio, where the participants were asked to respond to the conceptual and methodological problem of reductionism in the academic study of religion. The conference focused on the writings of Robert A. Segal and his defense of reductionism and criticism of Mircea Eliade's non-reductive interpretation of religion. The volume is divided into three sections: the challenge of the social sciences for the study of religion; reductionism, Eliade, and Segal; and sources and applications of reductionism. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

	List of Contributors
	Introduction	1
Pt. I	The Challenge of the Social Sciences for the Study of Religion
1	Reductionism in the Study of Religion	4
2	Are Religious Theories Susceptible to Reduction?	15
3	Clarifying the Strengths and Limits of Reductionism in the Discipline of Religion	43
4	The Instability of Religious Belief: Some Reductionistic and Eliminative Pressures	49
Pt. II	Reductionism, Eliade, and Segal
5	Must Professors of Religion by Religious? On Eliade's Method of Inquiry and Segal's Defense of Reductionism	65
6	Mircea Eliade and the Battle Against Reductionism	82
7	Reduction without Tears	95
8	Beyond the Sceptic and the Devotee: Reductionism in the Scientific Study of Religion	108
9	What is Reductionism?	127
10	Human Reflexivity and the Nonreductive Explanation of Religious Action	143
11	Religion, Explanation, and the Askesis of Inquiry	162
12	Explaining, Endorsing, and Reducing Religion	183
Pt. III	Sources and Applications of Reductionism
13	Before 'The Sacred' Became Theological: Durkheim and Reductionism	198
14	Reductionism in the Classroom	211
15	Reductions of a Working Historian	220
16	Discourse with Angels: Literature and Religion	230
	Index of Names	237
	Index of Subjects	238

Subjects

« Previous Book The Growth of North American Religious Beliefs: Spiritual Diversity