Toward a Volitional Definition of Religion

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8201713
AutoresJohn Nemec (University of Virginia, autor de correspondencia)
Año2020
Volumen88
Número3
Páginas664-692
Fecha de publicación2020-09-23
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of the American Academy of Religion (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0002-7189 • E-ISSN: 1477-4585
EditorialOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/jaarel/lfaa022
OpenAlexW3039040489
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas29

This article advocates for the production of stipulative definitions of religion, a type of nominal definition that articulates new ways of applying a word to a thing. I propose that scholars look to sites where phenomena historically have been labeled “religion” on lexical or real understandings of the term, this to query how religious agents there chose, implicitly or explicitly, to systematize thought, speech, emotion, and action. Such self-consciously ordered systems, I argue, may properly be labeled “religion.” Next, I apply this method to premodern South Asia, suggesting “religion” refers to the second-order structuring there that links normative social relations to normative states of subjectivity, any innovation in the one demanding innovation in the other. I conclude by inviting other efforts at stipulative definition, all with an eye toward an inductive approach, allowing that the myriad locations of religion present mutually distinguishable systems that may all properly be so labeled

Action (physics) · Chose · Economics · Epistemology · Linguistics · Normative · Order (exchange) · Political science · Sociology · Structuring · Subjectivity · Law · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · Religion, Society, and Development · Study and Philosophy of Religion