The Ethics of Knowledge: Religio Academici Reconsidered (original) (raw)
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A Critical and Analytical Approach to the Relativity of Religious Knowledge
Al-Mustafa Open University (Affiliated with Al-Mustafa International University), 2021
The study of human existence from its inception as an individual element to its development of the most complex forms of civilization and society is inseparable from the theory of knowledge; and how that human was through knowledge, was able to fluctuate on earth; to present great experimental models in his movement and history. just as the level of knowledge presented by man during his lifetime was not limited to a specific dimension, so we find that sometimes he focuses on the world of sense or the imagination or the abstract, and sometimes he gives importance to his thought and knowledge or makes it subject to another force. All these different directions were a hostage to circumstances and conditions that a person went through. The cognitive nature of the human being bifurcates us in our search for relativism in knowledge to address the most intellectual trends that have been born or not; at least, it is influenced the emergence of the relativistic concept in knowledge. However, this does not mean that limiting the study to these directions is complete and complete restriction, at all; But we focused on schools that we think that have priority in the search and highlight them, which will be as follows: Kantianism, historicisms, skepticism and existentialism, and then put these trends to the test analysis to show the wrong point in knowledge between the relative between the linkage of intellectual schools.
Religion, 1987
This two-volume reference work is presented as a `sequel' to J. Waardenburg's Classical Approaches to the Study of Religion published as volumes I and II in this same Mouton series (Reason and Religion). The work is meant to complement thè story' of the academic study of religion in its development up to 1945 implicit in the selections of representative scholars in the field gathered together by Waardenburg. The substance of these volumes does not, however, comprise select passages from key authors in `religious studies', that being virtually impossible given the extensive development of the field since 1945. Nor do these volumes present a unified historical narrative of that `further development' of religious studies. Rather, they contain the reflections of a `team' of scholars, each summarizing the character of the study of religion within the framework of various sub-disciplines, so to speak, that constitute that study. It is the aim of the editor (and most of the authors, it appears) not only to indicate the variety of legitimate research interests in religious studies, but also to show how that variety of approaches interrelate, or, at least, can be integrated so as to constitute a kind of unified theory of the nature of the study of religion. It soon becomes evident to the reader, however-and reluctantly admitted by the editorthat even with this two-volume assault on the problem there is no single paradigm for the study of religion even within sight let alone within our grasp. What unity does appear to exist derives more from the hopes expressed by the editor than from the substance of the essays. Volume I is focussed on `the humanities', i .e. on approaches to the study of religion that, as Whaling puts it in the introductions to the two volumes, transcend the positivism of the scientific approach to religious phenomena by means of the intuitive insight `that the study of religion has to do with man' (I : 25, 26 ; II : 12). In the introduction to the first volume, Whaling attempts to highlight, the contrasts between the classical and contemporary periods in the study of religion and enunciates some general methodological claims that seem to constitute a set of assumptions for all the authors. Five essays follow which cover the historical and phenomenological approaches to the study of religion (U. King), the comparative study of religion (F. Whaling), the study of religious texts and myth (K. Bolle), the scientific study of religion in its plurality (N. Smart), and the global context of the contemporary study of religions (F. Whaling). U. King's essay is more than merely descriptive. It is a polemical essay that argues for a historical and phenomenological study of religions that is more than a narrow, empirical approach to the phenomenon. Such an `empirical positivism', as she calls it, jeopardizes the autonomy of `religious studies' and is, moreover, inadequate to its subject matter. Her review of the methodological debates amongst historians and phenomenologists over the last 40 years, however, is thorough and stimulating .
Knowledge, and thus scienti¢c knowledge, has a history. 1 As with any other order of knowledge, scienti¢c knowledge can be thought, produced, questioned, discussed, accepted or formalized. Since the eighteenth century scienti¢c knowledge had been transferred and established in the European context and was successfully exported into non-European cultures. 2 In the process, science, or rather the German appreciation Wissenschaft, intended a historical, application-oriented understanding of knowledge based upon measurable, veri¢able and objective standards and judgements. 3 The general transformation of knowledge at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries also a¡ected the Jewish community. Since the Haskalah, and increasingly during the nineteenth century, rational knowledge orders and scienti¢c criteria became signi¢cant for the organization of Jewish knowledge. 4 In the process, scholarship, the preservation and transmission of Jewish knowledge, and the development of the so-called Wissenschaft des
Emergence of the Modern Academic Study of Religion: An Analytical Survey of Various Interpretations
Islamic Studies , 2016
This paper discusses various interpretations about the emergence of the academic study of religion in the modern world. It is viewed that the expansion of Europe and resultant engagement of European consciousness with religious and cultural otherness played a role. Internally, the Enlightenment movement had prepared the ground for a critical and objectified gaze at the phenomenon of religion on the one hand while Romanticism had generated a kind of fascination for oriental religions and exotic cultures, on the other. Similarly, the Christian theology, which had already gone through a transformation, is also linked to the whole enterprise either as a disciplinary other or as a participating actor. The paper shows that available interpretations of the development range from viewing it as an encroachment of the scientific project into the realm of religion to a marriage of convenience between science and religion. In the final analysis, an integrative and inclusive view of various interpretive narratives has been adopted. It is maintained that since the modern academic study of religion itself is characterized by the diversity of approaches, theoretical perspectives, and regional contexts, therefore, heterogeneity of the narratives regarding its beginnings is but a logical consequence. Still, interrogation into these narratives is useful for a better contextual understanding of various epistemological and methodological inclinations prevalent in the academic study of religion in our own times. The emergence of the academic study of religion in the modern world—variously known as Religionswissenschaft, Science of Religion, Comparative Religion, History of Religion, and Religious Studies—has been subject to various interpretations. The interpretive narratives in this context draw on a broad range of discourses such as science and religion, tradition and modernity, and colonial project of the European powers and their encounter with other.
Bogoslovni vestnik, 2023
The paper is a philosophical analysis of religious knowledge. The article examines religious knowledge by comparing it to scientific and mathematical knowledge as well as moral knowledge. Scientific knowledge is based on perceptions, whether these are direct perceptions or perceptions produced by a scientific experiment. We analyze religious perception by comparing it to perceptions in science and in moral epistemology in which perceptions are called moral perceptions. In moral epistemology and religious epistemology, the interpretation of perceptions takes place in a certain atmosphere which is not static and given but developing. All these perceptions have a similar methodical role in knowledge acquisition. The paper gives a methodical-conceptual analysis of religious knowledge, but at the same, it shows that the real option is the path of permanent discipleship.
In the paper an attempt is made to clarify the ambiguity, inherent in the interaction of normative and theoretical types of knowledge within the Religious Studies frameworks. After stating that such an ambiguity is provoked by the very nature of the development of Religious Studies (which may be called continuous “revolution” in Kuhn’s terms) author turns to analyze the fields in which normative and theoretical types of knowledge constitute itselfes, i.e. the characteristics of science and theoretical frameworks respectively. The former includes such characteristics as an interdisciplinarity of Religious Studies, its aspectual and empirical nature, and the latter includes procedures of investigating the data, which have been elaborated in certain disciplines. It is pointed out that the fruitful discussion of their relationship is possible in the meta-theory, which is defined as a system of disciplinary procedures of the analyzing of the types of knowledge organization. Author offers a sample of Religious Studies meta-theory based on works by Hilbert, Tarsky and Ajduciewicz.