The study of religion by social anthropologists, as distinct from the classical philosophical approach of the Greeks and their medieval heirs, began in the late 19th century with Edward Tyler’s Primitive Culture (1871). Tyler’s approach was completely a priori in style in that it did not rest on systematic field work or empirical observation. The same approach characterized James Frazer’s famous book, The Golden Bough (1891). Baldwin Spencer, the founding father of Australian anthropology, was persuaded by Frazer to (...) see the sophisticated religious beliefs and rites of the Aboriginal groups he studied in central Australia as mere ‘magic’. By the 1960s, a new generation of anthropologists, influenced by Claude Lévi-Strauss and English thinkers like E. Evans Pritchard, had arrived on the scene. This new ‘turn’ in anthropology led a number of contemporary scholars to the radical position that Western anthropology itself is a socio-cultural phenomenon that can be investigated in a broadly anthropological way. To see what this involves, it is worthwhile examining a number of crucial misunderstandings of Australian Aboriginal beliefs and practices that have been the artefactual result of various anthropological approaches. (shrink)

Religion was one of the most important issues for early sociology, as is amply demonstrated by the work of Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. This set draws together the formative works on this subject, including key works in social anthropology. The collection includes a volume of important early essays, and an original introduction by the editor.

A critical examination of the history of theories and uses of concepts such as ‘primitive’ and ‘savage’ in the academic study of religion in imperial, colonial and postcolonial contexts is particularly urgent in our time with its demands to decolonise Western models of knowledge production. In Savage Systems (1996) and Empire of Religion (2014), David Chidester has contributed to this project by relating the invention and use of terms such as ‘religion’, ‘primitive’ and ‘savage’ by (...) theorists of religion in European imperial metropoles to South African colonial and indigenous contexts. This article intends to take Chidester’s project further by relating Gerardus Van der Leeuw’s phenomenological analysis of ‘primitive mentality’ (particularly in De primitieve mensch en de religie, 1937) to Chidester’s analysis and postcolonial critique of imperial theories of religion. By taking animism and dreams in Chidester’s and Van der Leeuw’s works as example, it is argued that in spite of the latter’s decontextualised use of ethnological material, a fundamental shift occurred in the judgement of ‘primitive’ religion from Tylor’s evolutionary to Van der Leeuw’s phenomenological analysis, which is contrary to claims according to which modern theories are unanimously denigratory of indigenous religions. (shrink)

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Contains brief references to Aborigines based on secondary literature.

The merits of this sourcebook are too innumerable to list in entirety but it must be said that it has achieved an almost perfect balance among the requirements of representativeness, comprehensiveness, and structured presentation. The only traditions in religion which are not represented are Christianity and Judaism, and Eliade has made the right decision to presuppose a familiarity with this material on the part of the student so that he might present more material, within a manageable compass, on religions (...) which are less familiar to the occidental mind. There are 360 separate but moderately cross-referenced entries, and in choosing these Eliade has drawn on the primary documents, of course, most heavily. Where these are lacking, however, as is particularly the case with primitive religions, he has provided deftly selected accounts taken from anthropological studies. The selections are grouped around six main themes: I. Gods, Goddesses, and Supernatural Beings; II. Myths of Creation and Origin; III. Man and the Sacred; IV. Death, Afterlife, Eschatology; V. Specialists of the Sacred: From Medicine Men to Mystics and Founders of Religions; VI. Speculations on Man and God. Each of these sections is then subdivided into between five and ten parts, with occasional further structuration going on in some of the subparts. The book would complement any systematic study in comparative religion, and, as might be suspected, meshes beautifully with Eliade's own Patterns in Comparative Religion.—E. A. R. (shrink)

Training and inspiration in primitive religion.--Religion as method. Yoga.--Religion as psychology. Jinism and Hinayana.--Religion as devotion. Bhakti.--Religion with a salvation fact. Mahayana. Bhakti in Buddhism.--Religion as fight against evil. Zarathustra.--Socrates. The religion of good conscience.--Religion as revelation in history.--The religion of incarnation.--Continued revelation.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.1 (2002) 125-126 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence James E. Force and Richard H. Popkin, editors. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. International Archives of the History of Ideas. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999. Pp. xvii + 325. Cloth, $168.00. When James Force and Richard Popkin published their Essays on the Context, (...) Nature, and Influence of Isaac Newton's Theology in 1990, they launched a new sub-genre in Newton studies. Their seminal work opened up new scholarly vistas in the study of Newton's antitrinitarian theology, his millenarian prophetic hermeneutics, the relations between his theology and his natural philosophy, and the historical legacies of these until recently under-researched aspects of his thought. Force and Popkin have excelled particularly in leading the attack on the two variants of the "two-Newton" thesis: first, that Newton's theological and alchemical works were the result of a putative post-middle-aged madness or the meandering mind of an old man and, second, that Newton somehow disassociated his "pure" science from the problematic contaminations of alchemy and theology. This new volume of thirteen essays is the latest product of this effort to restore unity to Newton's life and thought.The first paper, by Deborah Harkness, outlines the work of the Elizabethan magus John Dee for the purpose of suggesting possible analogies with Newton. In the second essay, Allison Coudert seeks to update the Yates thesis: the proposal that modern science received an early and powerful stimulus from occult philosophy. Unlike Yates, who focused on Hermeticism, Coudert sees the main occult impetus to the rise of science in a renewed Gnosticism that emphasized the need to recover the original prisca sapientia (ancient wisdom). Coudert locates Newton in this latter tradition. In the third paper, James Bono sets out to revise and extend William Ashworth's 1990 study of the impact on the history of science of the "emblematic" world view. Bono seeks to show that Newton retained a commitment to the unity of the Books of Nature and Scripture, even while rejecting what he saw as the corruption and idolatry of man-made systems of symbols in favor of a program of discovering God's hand at work in creation.In the fourth and fifth papers, Justin Champion and Rob Iliffe detail aspects of Newton's engagement with Catholicism. Champion skillfully demonstrates how and why Newton appropriated what he saw as acceptable elements of the incipient textual criticism of the Catholic priest Richard Simon. Notwithstanding his use of this product of Catholic scholarship, Newton's virulent anti-Catholicism is detailed in a sophisticated account by Iliffe, who shows that it extended well beyond Newton's already explicated anti-papist prophetic exegesis.The sixth, seventh, and ninth essays examine Newton's study of history. In the sixth paper, Robert Markley shows how Newton deployed universal history in his quest to trace the origin and subsequent corruption of pure religion. Continuing the theme of religious apostasy, in the seventh essay Matt Goldish examines Newton's ecclesiastical history "Of the Church." Goldish describes how Newton's painstaking research uncovered the corruption of primitive religion by paganism, gnosticism, kabbalism, emanationist doctrines, and other such human interventions. The ninth paper by Kenneth Knoespel contains a study of Newton's ponderous and often impenetrable manuscript Theologiae gentilis origins philosophicae. Knoespel argues that this document helps illustrate Newton's belief that his Principia not so much represented a discovery of new knowledge as it embodied a recovery of ancient revealed truth.The eighth, tenth, and thirteenth papers feature accounts of Newton's prophetic exegesis and millenarian thought. The eighth and thirteenth papers, by Sarah Hutton and Reiner Smolinski respectively, make great strides in the understanding of the unity of Newton's theology by illustrating how crucial aspects of his heterodox doctrine helped shape his prophetic thought. Hutton focuses on the impact of Newton's Arian Christology on his exegesis of Revelation, while Smolinski relates Newton's mortalism and rejection of evil spirits to... (shrink)

In recent times Wittgenstein's work in logic has had an influence on other branches of philosophy. I am thinking, in particular, of social philosophy and the philosophy of religion. In these branches, Wittgenstein's followers have made much use of his notion of a language game. It has been argued, for example, that religion forms a language game of its own, having its own standards of reason, and is therefore not subject to criticism from outside. This argument has given (...) rise to controversy, some seeing it as a subtle attempt by the religious to evade criticism. I have come myself to feel that the notion of a language game has been put to uses with which Wittgenstein himself might not have agreed, or, if he had, would have been wrong to do so. In order to explain what I mean I should like to look closely at the opening section of Peter Winch's article ‘Understanding a Primitive Society’. (shrink)

""Why theories of religion?" After raising and answering this question the author begins his examination of theories of religion by first looking at the explanations given by religious believers (Revelation and Religious Experience). He then considers the view of thinkers who have sought to transform religion into philosophy (Plato, Kant and Hegel), before reviewing the theories of those who have seen religion as arising out of errors in primitive thinking (Tyler, Frazer and Levy-Bruhl) and those (...) 'masters of suspicion', as Paul Ricoeur has called them, (Feuerbach, Nietzsche, Marx and Freud) who offered what they believed to be exhaustive psychological and sociological theories of the origin and nature of religion. In the course of his discussion the author also engages with many contemporary thinkers whose discussions of religion have been based on these classical accounts."--BOOK JACKET. (shrink)

In the first full-length analysis of Wittgenstein's Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough, Brian R. Clack presents a fresh and innovative interpretation of Wittgenstein's conception of religion. While previous commentators have tended to sideline the Remarks on Frazer, Clack shows how the key to Wittgenstein's thought on religion lies in these remarks on primitive magico-religious observances. This book shows that Wittgenstein neither embraces expressivism, as it is generally assumed, nor straightforwardly denies instrumentalism. Focusing instead on Wittgenstein's suggestion that (...) magic is somehow akin to metaphysics, a view of ritual as the spontaneous expression of human beings is presented. (shrink)

Changing the worldview and cultural paradigm of the modern world with the inherent transformation of value orientations and the search for the life-meaning foundations of being leads to increased interest in the problems of spirituality. After all, spirituality is the most important pillar of human existence and the highest principle that determines the essence of man and his over-welcoming purpose. In the historical memory of the people, in its cultural traditions, spirituality has been sanctified for millennia by a religion (...) that sought to restrain primitive instincts and affirmation at all levels of being a moral person. Religion, as a spiritual phenomenon, is directly connected with man, with his attachment to the high meanings and the semantic fullness of being in general. The search for meaning promotes a person beyond the limits of the actual being given to him and ensures the integrity of the individual, affirmation of the person as an origin and bringing it to the culture and values. (shrink)

In his 1950 Marett Lecture, Professor Evans-Pritchard gave an account of important methodological developments which had taken place in social anthropology. I should like to use the occasion to concentrate on some of the deep contemporary divisions in another subject which interested R. R. Marett, namely, the philosophy of religion. I shall do so, however, by reference to some of the methodological issues which concerned Evans-Pritchard.

This essay reflects on Newman’s famous analyses of natural and revealed religion and their relation in the tenth and final chapter of the Grammar of Assent. There are two lines of reflection, the first internalist, the second externalist. On the first front, the essay draws attention to how conscience plays a foundational role in Newman’s discussion of natural religion and how it helps to distinguish it from the “religion of civilization,” which Newman considers to be a rationalist (...) substitute for the real religion. If natural religion is structurally grounded in conscience, it is historically illustrated in paganism and primitive religions to the extent to which these come to light in the modern age. Crucially, natural religion has significant content that is endorsed and recalibrated in revealed religion. It uncovers God as Judge and discloses humanity both to be under judgment and hoping for reconciliation through a mediator. The second and more externalist line of reflection draws attention to how Bishop Joseph Butler’s classic Analogy of Religion (1736) provides the basic frame for Newman’s reflection on natural and revealed religion and their relation. (shrink)

Is the Germanic god Wotan really an archaic archetype of the Spirit? Was the Third Reich at first a collective individuation process? After Friedrich Nietzsche heralded the "death of God," might the divine have been reborn as a collective form of self-redemption on German soil and in the Germanic soul? In _Jung’s Wandering Archetype_ Carrie Dohe presents a study of Jung’s writings on Germanic psychology from 1912 onwards, exploring the links between his views on religion and race and providing (...) his perspective on the answers to these questions. Dohe demonstrates how Jung’s view of Wotan as an archetype of the collective Germanic psyche was created from a combination of an ancient discourse on the Germanic barbarian and modern theories of primitive religion, and how he further employed _völkisch_ ideology and various colonialist discourses to contrast hypothesized Germanic, Jewish and ‘primitive’ psychologies. He saw Germanic psychology as dangerous yet vital, promising rebirth and rejuvenation, and compared Wotan to the Pentecostal Spirit, suggesting that the Germanic psyche contained the necessary tension to birth a new collective psycho-spiritual attitude. In racializing his religiously-inflected psychological theory, Jung combined religious and scientific discourses in a particularly seductive way, masterfully weaving together the objective language of science with the eternal language of myth. Dohe concludes the book by examining the use of these ideas in modern Germanic religion, in which members claim that religion is a matter of race. This in-depth study of Jung’s views on psychology, race and spirituality will be fascinating reading for all academics and students of Jungian and post-Jungian studies, religious studies and the history of religion. (shrink)

In a diverse and innovative selection of new essays by cutting-edge theologians and philosophers, _Suffering Religion_ examines one of the most primitive but challenging questions to define human experience - why do we suffer? As a theme uniting very different religious and cultural traditions, the problem of suffering addresses issues of passivity, the vulnerability of embodiment, the generosity of love and the complexity of gendered desire. Interdisciplinary studies bring different kinds of interpretations to meet and enrich each other. Can (...) the notion of goodness retain meaning in the face of real affliction, or is pain itself in conflict with meaning? Themes covered include: *philosophy's own failure to treat suffering seriously, with special reference to the Jewish tradition *Martin Buber's celebrated interpretations of scriptural suffering *suffering in Kristevan psychoanalysis, focusing on the Christian theology of the cross *the pain of childbirth in a home setting as a religiously significant choice *Gods primal suffering in the kabbalistic tradition *Incarnation as a gracious willingness to suffer. (shrink)

After an introduction about the nature of religion and primitive religion, the author discusses the Indian religions: Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Vedantism and Yoga. How Vedantism and Yoga could be considered as a religion different from Hinduism is not clear. In the second part the author studies the religions of China and Japan. Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Shintoism are represented. As the representative religions of Western civilization he has chosen Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Humanism. The norm (...) the author has adopted to distinguish between the Eastern and Western religions is questionable. The concluding chapter discusses syncretic tendencies and the pursuit of comparative studies that might eventually help to form a World Religion.—J. K. (shrink)

While the majority of organised religions determine the origins of religion itself in an act of divine revelation, social science literature takes an evolutionary perspective. Without engaging the question of origin of religion from either perspective, this article proposes seven correlations between interpersonal violence and the progression of organised religion by suggesting that interpersonal violence plays a significant role in the institutionalising process of organised religion. Although interpersonal violence does not necessarily cause the structuring of faith, (...) it reinforces and provides solutions to the existing patterns of threat faced by the community, which together lead to the organisation of religion. The first part of this article (stages 1–4) surveys the psychology of violence by focusing on the theories of frustration–aggression, mimetic rivalry, triangulation and the genesis of scapegoating and guilt. The second part (stages 5–6) marks the transition from personal to social psychology and surveys violence in the primitive religion, as manifested in the ritualising process of the scapegoat, and the genesis of sacrifice. The third part (stage 7) highlights the complexity of ritual, ethics and doctrine, in the evolution of religion from a primitive state to an advanced organised institution. (shrink)

As the century draws to its close, how should we think of religion? Some see it as the survival in our midst of an outmoded, primitive way of thinking, while others accuse its critics of simply being blind to the meaning of religious belief. From a different perspective, the clash between belief and unbelief is not seen as a matter of identifying incoherent systems of thought, but as a clash between different demands made on us by divergent ways (...) of looking at the world. Criticisms will flow between these perspectives. There is, however, another kind of interest in this situation: an interest in giving just characterizations of these different voices, so that the nature of allegiances and oppositions to religion may be better understood. (shrink)

Si l'on s'en tient à la distinction qu'établit l'Introduction de L'histoire naturelle de la religion entre la question du fondement de la religion dans la raison et celle de son origine dans la nature humaine, on sera tenté d'attribuer à chacun des deux principaux textes de Hume sur la religion - L'histoire naturelle de la religion et les Dialogues sur la religion naturelle -un objet propre, déterminant un type de discours philosophique particulier. L'histoire naturelle développerait (...) un discours causal, principalement généalogique, sur les religions positives, toutes populaires en leur fond, tandis que les Dialogues auraient à charge de mener l'examen critique des prétentions philosophiques de la religion naturelle. Il y aurait d'un côté la religion du peuple, ou de l'humanité encore inculte, et de l'autre la religion des savants, ou de l'humanité civilisée. Mais les choses ne sont pas si simples. Car d'une part, en montrant que le polythéisme, religion primitive de l'humanité inculte, conduit naturellement au théisme, L'histoire naturelle montre par là même que le théisme, dans lequel il faut comprendre la religion naturelle elle-même, a ses origines dans la superstition populaire. D'autre part, les trois dernières parties des Dialogues, consacrées aux attributs moraux de la divinité (parties X et XI) et à l'utilité ou la nécessité de la religion pour la morale et la société (partie XII), mettent en évidence les prétentions pratiques, et non simplement spéculatives, de la religion naturelle. Autrement dit, la superstition populaire a un devenir philosophique ou spéculatif, dans le théisme, et inversement la religion naturelle rejoint les religions positives dans leur prétention à régir la conduite humaine. C'est pourquoi, loin d'être totalement distincts et indépendants, le discours de L'histoire naturelle et celui des Dialogues se croisent et sont dans un rapport d'étroite intertextualité. Si une lecture interne de L'histoire naturelle suffit pour comprendre que la religion naturelle est bien, au même titre que les autres sortes de religion, l'objet de cette dissertation, ainsi comprise, L'histoire naturelle porte néanmoins un éclairage sur les Dialogues, en ce qu'elle permet de montrer que le ressort des arguments de Cléanthe et de Déméa n'est autre que la superstition. (shrink)