Burley, M. orcid.org/0000-0002-7446-3564 (2024) Neither ‘underpinning’ nor ‘overarching’: explicating a critically reciprocal philosophy of religious studies. Religion, 54 (4). pp. 689-705. ISSN 0048-721X
Abstract
One conception of philosophy’s role vis-à-vis religious studies is that of uncovering the ‘conditions of the possibility’ of approaches such as the history, psychology, or sociology of religion. Bernard Lonergan, for example, regarded philosophy of religion as ‘underpinning’ and ‘overarching’ other approaches; hence Jim Kanaris designated Lonergan’s conception of philosophy of religion a ‘philosophy of religious studies’. Without simply rejecting the latter conception, this article explicates an alternative, according to which philosophy of religion has much to learn from other approaches. Indeed, attentiveness to empirical studies is one means of overcoming a fixation on an abstract ‘theism’. Engaging critically though sympathetically with work by Kevin Schilbrack and Timothy Knepper, and expounding the notion of critical description in philosophy of religion, the article makes conceptual space for a critically reciprocal philosophy of religious studies; this downplays the evaluation of ‘religious reason-giving’ while emphasizing self-criticality and reflection upon interdisciplinary methods.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2024 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | critical description, interdisciplinarity, Timothy Knepper, Bernard Lonergan, philosophy of religion, religious studies, Kevin Schilbrack, thick description |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science (Leeds) > Theology and Religious Studies (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 04 Jun 2024 15:04 |
Last Modified: | 04 Dec 2024 15:53 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Taylor & Francis |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/0048721X.2024.2388435 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:213053 |