"Religion" in Non-Western Cultures?1
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2448612 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Werner Cohn (University of British Columbia, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1967 |
| Volume | 69 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 73-76 |
| Publication date | 1967-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Anthropologist (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0002-7294 • E-ISSN: 1548-1433 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1525/aa.1967.69.1.02a00100 |
| OpenAlex | W2144083761 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 13 |
I wish to suggest in this brief communication that most of the best-known anthropological writings on 'religion in non-Western cultures contain as their central assumption a proposition that is based on an error in reasoning. The proposition is that can usefully be thought of as existing universally, and the error in reasoning consists of an unacknowledged and apparently unrecognized switch of meaning for the term religion in the middle of the argument. My thesis may be summarized as follows: when the term religion appears in the ethnographies of non-Western peoples, there is always an implicit comparison with the West. But ethnographers use one set of criteria for determining outside the West and another set of criteria for determining in the West. If the ethnographer were to use the same criteria for the West that he uses for the non-West, the effect would be a serious undermining of current notions regarding the universality of religion. Let me now try to make a very brief inventory of the various ways in which the term religion is used in the social science literature. The one common denominator all usages seem to encompass is that of a relatively high degree of emotional investment on the part of the social actor. Following Howard Becker (1957), I shall call this the realm of the sacred.2 Within this realm there are two major types of action: what I shall call nacirema and sacred institution
Sociology · Anthropology · Asian Studies and History · History · Philippine History and Culture · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · Religious studies
Religion and society among the Coorgs of South India
Collected Papers
Common-Sense and Scientific Interpretation of Human Action
Modern sociological theory.
Equality and the Meaning Structure of the Social World
The Meaning and End of Religion
Common-Sense and Scientific Interpretation of Human Action
The Double Faith Theory in Clement, Saadia, Averroes and St. Thomas, and Its Origin in Aristotle and the Stoics
Magical-animism and Buddhism
"Religion" in Non-Western Cultures?1
Body Ritual among the Nacirema
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,08 |
| Citation span | 1967 - 2016 (50) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |