Robert A Segal
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 130039 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Robert A Segal |
| PRENOMES | Robert A |
| SOBRENOME | Segal |
| ASSINATURA | SEGAL R A |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Institute of Religious Studies |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2674-3403 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 178 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 120 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 174 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 4 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1976 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2021 |
| ÍNDICE H | 6 |
The Wiley Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion
Frazer as euhemerist
Frazer’s theory of religion and of myth and ritual is confusing in many ways, especially for euhemerism. In a further confusion, Frazer actually presents two versions of myth-ritualism and fails to disentangle them. In the first version, the myth provides the biography of the god of vegetation, and the ritual enacts it. In Frazer’s second version of myth-ritualism, the king is central. Yet Osiris alone is considered by J. G. Frazer to have been a…
Anthropology of Religion
The study of religion has been central to anthropology since its inception. As an inclusive, comparative study of human societies, from their prehistoric origins to the present, anthropology has sought to describe, classify, and explain religious beliefs and practices. At the same time the term “religion” is elusive and problematic. While some early missionaries denied that the “savage” peoples they encountered had any religion at all, others saw…
From Ritual to Romance
Myth Analyzed
On myth as ideology
Does the Gaia hypothesis bring myth back to the world
Greek myth and psychoanalysis
Commentary on Mills’ “toward a theory of myth”
In his provocative article on theorizing about myth, Jon Mills kindly cites my own work on the subject. Let me confine my remarks to his comments on me. I now see, thanks to Mills, how confusing some of my statements have perhaps been
Is There a Better Way to Study Religion? The View of William E. Paden
This review praises William Paden’s focus on some of the key issues in the study of religion. It questions Paden’s position on three topics: (a) the relationship between evolutionary psychology and functionalism; (b) the compatibility of Durkheim with Eliade; and (c) the ‘newness’ of Paden’s new comparativism.
In Defense of a Naturalistic Approach to Religion
Freudian and Jungian approaches to myth
For both Freud and Jung, modernity is distinctive in its decisive separation of the outer from the inner, which, oversimplified, means of the physical from the psychological. For neither Jung nor Freud does the surrender of religion to science mean the surrender of myth. Even though for both Freud and Jung myth has traditionally been part of religion, they are able to decouple myth from religion and thereby save it from science. Freud and Jung sa…
Is a Jungian Analysis Scientific
The Jungian community is divided into two camps. The doubtless larger camp has no interest in the scientific status of Jungian psychology. On the contrary, it despises science as narrow, one-sided, and even irrelevant to the depths of the psyche. It revels in THE RED BOOK, where Jung expresses a hostility to science that makes present-day creationists seem like Nobel laureates in physics. This camp sees science as simply an option, which it choos…
The Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion
Eliade on Myth and Science
In contrast to nineteenth-century theorists, who set myth against science, Mircea Eliade, like other twentieth-century theorists, sought to reconcile myth with science. For both Bronislaw Malinowski and Eliade myth is, to be sure, an explanation in part, but the explanation is only a means to a nonscientific end rather than the end itself. By contrast to Malinowski, Eliade, like Edward B. Tylor and James George Frazer, assumes that primitive peop…
The Life of King Saul as Myth
Diagnosis Rather than Dialogue as the Best Way to Study Religion
Replies to Ivan Strenski, Adela Yarbro Collins, and David Miller
Sociology of Religion
The discipline of sociology is about pattern. More specifically, and in common with other social sciences, it is concerned both with identifying and with explaining the nonrandom ways that individuals, communities, and societies order their lives. The sociology of religion aims to discover the patterns of individual and social living associated with religion in all its diverse forms. It is not concerned with the competing truth claims made by rel…
Religion of the Semites
Originally published in 1889, "The Religion of the Semites" by William Robertson Smith remains a foundational text in the study of comparative religion. Smith's work explores the common religious practices and beliefs of Semitic peoples, including Babylonians, Assyrians, Phoenicians, and ancient Israelites, focusing on rituals related to sacrifice, holiness, and the gods. He argues that religion evolved from primitive social structures and practi…
Before Religion
Myth (DRAFT)
Where do myths come from? What is their function and what do they mean? Myth: A Very Short Introduction introduces a wide array of approaches to understanding myth from disciplines as varied as anthropology, sociology, psychology, literary criticism, philosophy, science, and religious studies. It uses the famous ancient myth of Adonis to analyse the ideas and individual approaches and theories of theorists such as Sigmund Freud, Claude Lévi-Strau…
Eliade, Mircea (1907–86)
Myth in Religion
Myth and structure
‘Myth and structure’ examines the contributions of Claude Lévi-Strauss to the study of myth. Lévi-Strauss treats myth as a coldly intellectual phenomenon: the oppositions expressed in myth constitute logical puzzles rather than existential predicaments. In calling his approach to myth ‘structuralist’, Lévi-Strauss intends to distinguish it from ‘narrative’ interpretations, or those that adhere to the plot of myth. In his unique brand of myth-ritu…
In Defense of the Comparative Method
While in some disciplines the comparative method is used unhesitatingly, in others it is spurned. In the field of religious studies, the method has long been rejected, and that rejection far antedates the anti-comparativist stance of postmodernism. This article identifies the main objections commonly lodged against the method and attempts to refute them all - as mischaracterizations either of the method or of the quest for knowledge itself. The a…
Myth
Where do myths come from? What is their function and what do they mean? Myth: A Very Short Introduction introduces a wide array of approaches to understanding myth from disciplines as varied as anthropology, sociology, psychology, literary criticism, philosophy, science, and religious studies. It uses the famous ancient myth of Adonis to analyse the ideas and individual approaches and theories of theorists such as Sigmund Freud, Claude Lévi-Strau…
In Defense of Reductionism
Journal Article In Defense of Reductionism Get access Robert A. Segal Robert A. Segal Robert A Segal (M A , Princeton) teaches in the Western Culture Program at Stanford University He is the author of articles on the social-scientific study of religion and myth in Religious Studies, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Journal of the American Academy of Religion Supplement, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Bulletin of the Cou…
Jung and Lévy-Bruhl
For his knowledge of 'primitive' peoples, C. G. Jung relied on the work of Lucien Lévy-Bruhl (1857-1939), a French philosopher who in mid-career became an armchair anthropologist. In a series of books from 1910 on, Lévy-Bruhl asserted that 'primitive' peoples had been misunderstood by modern Westerners. Rather than thinking like moderns, just less rigorously, 'primitives' harbour a mentality of their own. 'Primitive' thinking is both 'mystical' a…
Weber and Geertz on the Meaning of Religion
Clifford Geertz often cites Max Weber as the pioneering ‘interpretive’ social scientist. But the approaches of Weber and Geertz to interpretation differ sharply. Both associate interpretation with meaning, but they diverge on the nature of meaning, on the relationship between meaning and cause, and on the consequent relationship between interpretation and explanation. While both use ‘meaning’ not only as intent but also as significance, or meanin…
All Generalizations Are Bad
The ramifications of postmodernism for theology have been discussed voluminously. I want to consider the ramifications of postmodernism for the social scientific study of religion, which above all means for theories of religion. Those ramifications are wholly negative: postmodernism opposes theories, and does so because it opposes generalizations. Objections to generalizations and thereby to theories in the social sciences long antedate the rise …
Jung on Mythology
Contents: Part I. Jung on Myth. The Origin of Myth. The Function of Myth. Myths and Dreams/Fantasies. Myth as a Way of Thinking. Kings of Myths. Myths and Primitives. Myths and Moderns. Earlier Psychological Interpretations of Myth. Myth and Religion. Part II. Developments in the Jungian Theory of Myth. Erich Neumann. Marie-Louise von Franz. James Hillman. Index
Joseph Campbell
The Myth-Ritualist Theory of Religion
According to the myth-ritualist theory, religion is primitive science: through myth and ritual, which operate together and constitute its core, religion magically manipulates the world. Many of the leading theories of religion present alternative views of the relationship and function of myths and rituals. Even if false, the myth-ritualist theory is valuable in suggesting aspects of religion which might otherwise get overlooked. Similarly, charti…
The Myth and Ritual Theory
Explaining and Interpreting Religion
Contents: This book of essays challenges the conventional view that social scientists explain religion and that, by contrast, scholars of religions studies - religionists -interpret it. Both groups turn out to explain and interpret religion alike.OR: This book of essays demonstrates the disparate uses of the terms explanation and interpretation in the study of religion. It then considers the implications of those uses for the reconcilability of a…
Interpretation and Explanation
Journal Article Interpretation and Explanation: A Response to Jason Blum's Defense of the Phenomenology of Religion Get access Robert A. Segal Robert A. Segal * *University of Aberdeen, School of Divinity, History and Philosophy, 50/52 College Bounds, Aberdeen AB24 3DS, UK. Email: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume 82, Issue 4, December 20…
Kuhn and the science of religion
Ever since the challenge to the ‘received’ view of the philosophy of scienceda view epitomized by Karl Popper and Carl Hempeldthe status of science has been questioned. If radical critics of the received viewdcritics including Kuhn, Laudan, Feyerabend, the Edinburgh Strong Programme, and Latourdare right, can science, which means natural science, still be considered objective? Can it still be deemed the model of objectivity to be emulated by the …
Making the Myth-Ritualist Theory Scientific
Working from his base in ancient Greek religion, Walter Burkert has come to propose a theory of religion generally. That theory rests on the work of ethologists and, more recently, of sociobiologists. While concentrating on ritual, which for him is the heart of religion, Burkert links ritual to myth to offer his own version of the myth-ritualist theory. Rejecting the old-fashioned view, epitomised by James Frazer, that myth and ritual function to…
Hume'snatural history of religionand the beginning of the social scientific study of religion
David Hume's The Natural History of Religion (1757) has rightly been considered a key work in the development of the social scientific study of religion. Compared with other pioneers in the field, Hume is precociously modern in many ways: (1) in his insistence on the distinction between the issue of origin and the issue of truth, (2) in his concentration on causes rather than reasons, (3) in his interest in the recurrent rather than the one‐time …
Anthropological Studies
Journal Article ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDIES Get access Culture and Communication: The Logic By Which Symbols Are Connected. An Introduction to the Use of Structuralist Analysis in Social Anthropology (Themes in the Social Sciences). By Edmund Leach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976. 105 pages. $9.95. L.C. No. 75-30439. Robert A. Segal Robert A. Segal Reed College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Jour…
Commentary on Mills’ “toward a theory of myth”
In his provocative article on theorizing about myth, Jon Mills kindly cites my own work on the subject. Let me confine my remarks to his comments on me. I now see, thanks to Mills, how confusing some of my statements have perhaps been
Religion of the Semites
Originally published in 1889, "The Religion of the Semites" by William Robertson Smith remains a foundational text in the study of comparative religion. Smith's work explores the common religious practices and beliefs of Semitic peoples, including Babylonians, Assyrians, Phoenicians, and ancient Israelites, focusing on rituals related to sacrifice, holiness, and the gods. He argues that religion evolved from primitive social structures and practi…
The Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion
This article presents the approach to religion taken by the Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion, edited by Robert Segal. The approach taken is largely, though not wholly, that of the social sciences: anthropology, economics, psychology, and sociology. The social scientific approach to religion is pitted against the approach taken by the field of religious studies itself—an approach called “religionist.” The claims by the religionist appr…
The Blurry Line Between Humans and Gods
The conventional view is that at least in the West there is a clear-cut and insurmountable divide between human beings and God. This article argues that the divide is neither clear-cut nor insurmountable. Three disparate cases are considered: the conception of God in the Hebrew Bible, traditional and contemporary conceptions of heroism, and the status of celebrities
Clifford Geertz's Interpretive Approach to Religion
Clifford Geertz is often lauded as the key social scientist in the contemporary shift from an interpretive approach to religion and to culture in general to an explanatory approach. Supposedly, the shift is from concern with the cause of religion to concern with the meaning of religion. This article argues, first, that Geertz associates an interpretive approach with an array of distinct considerations and argues, second, that Geertz actually seek…
Jung as psychologist of religion and Jung as philosopher of religion
Is it possible to be both a psychologist and a philosopher? Is it possible for a psychologist, or more generally a social scientist, to use social scientific findings to make philosophical claims? Specifically, is it possible for a social scientist to use social scientific findings to determine the existence of God? Did Jung profess to be only a psychologist or also a philosopher? If he professed to be both, did he enlist his psychological findin…
Reply to Susan Rowland
The Frazerian roots of contemporary theories of religion and violence
The association of religion with violence rather than with peace long antedates 9/11. Among theorists of religion, the association goes back at least to J.G. Frazer, author of the classic The Golden Bough (first ed. 1890). Contemporary theorists who tie religion to violence are beholden to Frazer, even when they spurn any dependence. At the same time the function of religious violence for contemporary theorists has shifted from control over the p…
The place of religion in modernity
Heritage Review
Comparative History of Religion
Journal Article COMPARATIVE HISTORY OF RELIGION Get access Myths, Rites, Symbols: A Mircea Eliade Reader. Edited by WENDELL C. BEANE and WILLIAM G. DOTY. New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1976. Two volumes, xviii+465 pages, (vol. 2:255–465). $3.95 each. L.C. No. 75-7931. ROBERT A. SEGAL ROBERT A. SEGAL Reed College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume XLV, Issu…
Early Modern Western Religious Studies
Journal Article EARLY MODERN WESTERN RELIGIOUS STUDIES Get access The Rise of Modern Mythology. 1680–1860. By BURTON FELDMAN and ROBERT D. RICHARDSONBloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975. xxvii+564 pages. $5.95. L.C. No. 71-135005. ROBERT A. SEGAL ROBERT A. SEGAL Reed College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume XLV, Issue 3, September 1977, Pages 385–38…
Metaphor and Myth in Science and Religion . Earl R. MacCormac
Occultism, Witchcraft, and Cultural Fashions
Eliade's Theory of Millenarianism
To the extent that Mircea Eliade is concerned with millenarianism he is concerned with it as only an instance of religious phenomena generally and is concerned with its meaning rather than its cause. Yet presupposed in the meaning he finds is a theory of its cause, and that theory is worth examining both because it elucidates Eliade's approach to religion as a whole and because as an explanation of millenarianism it is atypical and even unique
Ancient Near East Studies
ANCIENT NEAR EAST STUDIES Get access One Hundred Years of Old Testament Interpretation By Ronald E. ClementsPhiladelphia: Westminster Press, 1976 iii+152 pages $4.95. L.C. No 76-23236. Robert Segal Robert Segal Reed College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume XLVI, Issue 4, December 1978, Pages 580-b–580, https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/XLVI.4.580-b Published:…
Sociology of Religion
Journal Article SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION Get access Functionalism in Modern Sociology: Understanding Talcott Parsons. (General Learning Press Instructional System: Sociology.) By Benton Johnson. Morristown, NJ: General Learning Press, 1975. x+69 pages. $2.50. L. C. No. 74-29674 Robert A. Segal Robert A. Segal Reed College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume XLVI…
Sociology of Religion
Joseph Campbell's Theory of Myth
Joseph Campbell has been writing about myth since 1943, and his most recent book, The Mythic Image (1974), is the culmination of his lifelong study of the subject. Since 1943 Campbell's view of myth has remained not only virtually unaltered but also virtually unproved. Campbell offers no arguments for any of his various assertions about myth: that modern society is in turmoil because modern man finds life meaningless; that modern man finds life m…
Anthropological Studies
Journal Article ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDIES Get access Culture and Communication: The Logic By Which Symbols Are Connected. An Introduction to the Use of Structuralist Analysis in Social Anthropology (Themes in the Social Sciences). By Edmund Leach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976. 105 pages. $9.95. L.C. No. 75-30439. Robert A. Segal Robert A. Segal Reed College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Jour…
Homo Religiosus' in Mircea Eliade
Religion on Trial
Philosophy of Religion
Journal Article PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION Get access Philosophy of Religion: An Annotated Bibliography of Twentieth-Century Writings in English (Garland Reference Library of the Humanities, III). By William J. Wainwright. New York: Garland Publishing, 1978. xiii+776 pages. $40.00. L.C. No. 77-83374. Robert A. Segal Robert A. Segal Reed College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of…
Sociology of Religion
Journal Article SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION Get access Toward a Theory of Secularization (Society for the Scientific Study of Religion Monograph Series, 1). By Richard K. FennStorrs, CT: Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, 1978. xxii+91 pages $4.50. L. C. No. 78-61587. Robert A. Segal Robert A. Segal Reed College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume XLVII,…
Religions of Western Antiquity
Journal Article RELIGIONS OF WESTERN ANTIQUITY Get access Hesiod: Works and Days Ed. with Progelegomena and Commentary by M. L. West. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978. xiii+399 pages. $37.50. ISBN 0-19-814005-3. Robert A. Segal Robert A. Segal Reed College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume XLVII, Issue 2, June 1979, Pages 305-a–305, https://doi.org/10.1093/jaa…
Book Notices
Book Notices Get access The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man: An Essay on Speculative Thought in the Ancient Near East (Oriental Institute Essay). By Henri Frankfort, H. A. Frankfort, John A Wilson, Thorkild Jacobsen, and William A Irwin. Chicago: University of Chicago Phoenix Books, 1977. vii+401 pages, index. $4.95. L.C. No. 47-1318. Robert Segal Robert Segal Reed College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Sch…
Book Notices
Book Notices Get access Reflections on the Study of Religion (Religion and Reason Series, No. 15). By Jacques Waardenburg. The Hague: Mounton, 1978. xi+284 pages. $32.25. ISBN 90-279-7604-X. Robert A. Segal Robert A. Segal Reed College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume XLVII, Issue 4, December 1979, Page 695, https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/XLVII.4.695 Publi…
Book Notices
Journal Article Book Notices Get access Classical Mythology: An Annotated Bibliographical Survey (American Philological Association Bibliographical Guides). By John Peradotto. Urbana, IL: American Philological Association, 1973. 76 pages. $2. 95. ISBN 0-89192-005-6. Robert A. Segal Robert A. Segal Reed College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume XLVII, Issue …
Philosophy
PHILOSOPHY Get access Varieties of Interpretation. By Joseph Anthony Mazzeo. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1978. xiv+178 pages. $13.95. L. C. No. 78-51518. Robert A. Segal Robert A. Segal Reed College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume XLVII, Issue 2, June 1979, Pages 346–347, https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/XLVII.2.346 Published: 01 June 19…
Psychology of Religion
Journal Article PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION Get access Imago Del: A Study of C. G. Jung's Psychology of Religion (Studies in Jungian Thought) By James W Heisig. Cranbury, NJ: Bucknell University Press, 1979. 253 pages, notes, bibliography, Index. $17.00. ISBN 0-8387-2076-5 Robert A Segal Robert A Segal Reed College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume XLVIII, Issue…
Psychology of Religion
Journal Article PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION Get access C. G. Jung and Analytical Psychology: A Comprehensive Bibliography (Garland Reference Library of the Social Sciences, 38). By Joseph F. Vincie and Margretta Rathbauer-Vincie. New York: Garland, 1977. xiv+297 pages. $28.00. L.C. No. 76-52695. Robert A. Segal Robert A. Segal Reed College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Relig…
Philosophy of Religion
PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION Get access Silent Fire: An Invitation to Western Mysticism. Edited by Walter Holden Capps and Wendy M. Wright. New York: Harper Forum Books, 1978. x+262 pages, index. $5.95. L.C. No. 78-03366. Robert A. Segal Robert A. Segal Reed College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume XLVIII, Issue 1, March 1980, Pages 139-b–140, https://doi.org/10…
Psychology of Religion
Journal Article PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION Get access The Birth of the Living God: A Psychoanalytic Study. By Ana-Maria Rizzuto. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979. x+246 pages, appendix, notes, index. $15.00. L.C. No. 78-10475. Robert A. Segal Robert A. Segal Reed College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume XLVIII, Issue 2, June 1980, Pages 309–311, http…
Social-Scientific Study of Religion
SOCIAL-SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION Get access Claude Lévi-Strauss and His Critics: An International Bibliography of Criticism (1950–1976) followed by a Bibliography of the Writings of Claude Lévi-Strauss (Garland Reference Library of the Humanities, 72). By Francois H. Lapointe and Claire C. Lapointe. New York: Garland, 1977. vi+219 pages. $23.00 L.C No. 76-24752. Robert A. Segal Robert A. Segal Reed College Search for other works by this author…
Philosophy (134 obras) · Sociology (92 obras) · Religion and Society Interactions (75 obras) · Epistemology (72 obras) · History (56 obras) · Art (53 obras) · Mythology (52 obras) · Religious studies (49 obras) · Philosophy (47 obras) · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices (45 obras)