Explaining Religion’s Durability or Decline Based on Morphogenetic Generation

Bibliographic Data

ID21159633
AuthorsStephen Armet (Programa Latinoamericano de Estudios Socio-religiosos (PROLADES), San José, Costa Rica, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume16
Issue3
Pages315-338
Publication date2017-05-27
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Critical Realism (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1476-7430 • E-ISSN: 1572-5138
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14767430.2017.1296745
OpenAlexW2592197114
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited31

How do researchers explain religion’s durability in Costa Rica and intense secularization in Uruguay in spite of parallel historical developments? This article seeks to explain why current theories of secularization and religious stability are inadequate to explain this outcome due to the limits of positivistic assumptions and methodological individualism. Archer’s morphogenetic approach provides a better model because it avoids conflation by emphasizing emergence and analytic dualism between individual action and social context over time. Causation is explained by analysing historically contingent outcomes which allow for a synthesis of both abstract properties and how conjunctive events are related thus necessitating the role of human agency as opposed to macro-social forces

Conflation · Dualism · Economics · Epistemology · Individualism · Methodological individualism · Political science · Positive economics · Positivism · Secularization · Social science · Sociology · History · Philosophy · Psychology · Religion and Society Interactions · Religion, Society, and Development · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology · Social Psychology

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