What Cultural Theorists of Religion Have to Learn from Wittgenstein; Or, How to Read Geertz as a Practice Theorist
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8206785 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jason A Springs (0000-0002-3284-9311, University of Notre Dame, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2008 |
| Volume | 76 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 934-969 |
| Publication date | 2008-10-19 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of the American Academy of Religion (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0002-7189 • E-ISSN: 1477-4585 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/jaarel/lfn087 |
| OpenAlex | W2141124736 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 10 |
| References cited | 18 |
Amid the debates over the meaning and usefulness of the word “culture” during the 1980s and 1990s, practice theory emerged as a framework for analysis and criticism in cultural anthropology. Although theorists have gradually begun to explore practice-oriented frameworks as promising vistas in cultural anthropology and the study of religion, these remain relatively recent developments that stand to be historically explicated and conceptually refined. This article assesses several ways that practice theory has been articulated by some of its chief expositors and critics, and places these developments in conversation with comparable accounts of “social practices” by recent pragmatist philosophers. My aim in generating such a conversation is to illuminate the ways that Ludwig Wittgenstein's later work provides important resources for cultural analysis that are already implicit in practice theory, yet either frequently overlooked or dismissed by practice theorists. I demonstrate how a Wittgensteinian understanding of practice theory coheres with, and illuminates, Clifford Geertz's account of meaning, thick description, and religious practices. Reading Geertz as a practice theorist, I argue, helps alleviate the apparent opposition between assessing meaning and analyzing power in the study of religious practices and institutions, and unsettles dichotomous accounts of belief and intentional action.
Conversation · Criticism · Culture theory · Epistemology · Meaning (existential) · Opposition (politics) · Political science · Practice theory · Pragmatism · Sociology · Anthropology · Law · Marriage and Sexual Relationships · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · Study and Philosophy of Religion
Late Wittgenstein by C. Geertz
On critical approaches, unintended consequences and the data of everyday life in 'performing towns
Fieldwork in philosophy“
Meaning vs. Power
In the Critic vs. Caretaker Dichotomy A Magic Dwells
Religious Ethics and the Environment
Steps towards understanding medieval urban communities as social practice
Are Meanings the Name of the Game? Religion as Symbolic Meaning and Religion as Power
Out of the ordinary
The Oddness of Things
The quest for certainty
Political Philosophy and the Idea of a Social Science
The Appropriation of Wittgenstein's Work By Philosophers of Religion
Beyond “Culture”
Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
Wittgenstein
Wittgenstein and Political Philosophy
I don't do systems
From the Native's Point of View
Religion, Models of, and Reality
The Touch of the Real
The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy
Ritual
"Reflections on the Workshop on "The Self
Representation and Reality in the Study of Culture
Resistance and the Problem of Ethnographic Refusal
| Unique citing works | 10 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,59 |
| Citation span | 2009 - 2023 (15) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 7 |