This timely collection of essays by leading international scholars across religious studies and the environmental humanities advances a lively discussion on materialism in its many forms. While there is little agreement on what 'materialism' means, it is evident that there is a resurgence in thinking about matter in more animated and active ways. The volume explores how debates concerning the new materialisms impinge on religious traditions and the extent to which religions, with their material culture and (...) beliefs in the Divine within the material, can make a creative contribution to debates about ecological materialisms. Spanning a broad range of themes, including politics, architecture, hermeneutics, literature, and religion, the book brings together a series of discussions on materialism in the context of diverse methodologies and approaches. The volume investigates a range of issues including space and place, hierarchy and relationality, the relationship between nature and society, human and other agencies, and worldviews and cultural values. Drawing on literary and critical theory, and queer, philosophical, theological and social theoretical approaches, this ground-breaking book will make an important contribution to the environmental humanities. It will be a key read for postgraduate students, researchers and scholars in religious studies, cultural anthropology, literary studies, philosophy and environmental studies. (shrink)

This paper focuses on Bataille's elaboration of an 'economic' conception of the 'sacred' and considers the extent to which it is vulnerable to the charge of 'romantic anti-capitalism'. Aspects of the thought of Deleuze and Guattari on the nature of 'late capitalism' are evoked with a view to supporting the paper's hypothesis that a synthesis of Bataille's conception of the 'sacred' and Deleuze's and Guattari's insights into the nature of capital provides a powerful theoretical outlook at once enticing and disturbing (...) - the sacredness of 'late capital'. What this entails as regards both the attainment of the non-anthropomorphic nature of religion and contemporary political critique is considered. (shrink)

Abstract. Contrary to proposals that seek a harmonious integration of “science and religion” or “science and spirituality,” I argue that contemporary scientific and philosophical work at the mind-brain interface gives us reason to be skeptical of many of the claims found within religious spiritualities. Religious spiritualities typically presume commitment to strong versions of metaphysical dualism, while contemporary mind science gives us every reason to think that the mind is the brain. If materialism is true, what becomes of (...) spirituality? Materialism or naturalism is widely understood to be an anti-religious position with corrosive effects on morality. I correct this impression, arguing that materialism offers a compelling account of moral objectivity and is fully compatible with an appreciation for many aspects of religion. I further suggest that nothing precludes dialogue and conversation between naturalists and religious believers. (shrink)

Religion: material dynamics is a lively resource for thinking about religious materiality and the material study of religion. Deconstructing and reconstructing religion as material categories, social formations, and mobile circulations, the book explores the making, ordering, and circulating of religious things. Split into three sections, Part One revitalizes basic categories--animism and sacred, space and time--by situating them in their material production and testing their analytical viability. Part Two examines religious formations as configurations of power that operate in (...) material cultures and cultural economies and are most clearly shown in the power relations of colonialism and imperialism. Part Three explores the material dynamics of circulation through case studies of religious mobility, change, and diffusion as intimate as the body and as vast as the oceans. Each chapter offers insightful orientations and surprising possibilities for studying material religion. Exploring the material dynamics of religion from poetics to politics, David Chidester provides an entry into the study of material religion that will be welcomed by students and specialists in religious studies, anthropology, and history."--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Purpose of this article is to study the phenomenon of desire in Ancient Chinese and ancient Indian society, to reveal a material basis for the appearance and formation of the specific ethical attitude towards desire in the philosophical reflection of ancient thinkers. To fulfil this purpose, we should study and analyse methodology of desire studies in philosophical and psychological literature, analyse the ethical attitude towards desire in religious and philosophical texts of Chinese and Indian thinkers, understand social and economic (...) basis of such an ethical attitude, that is to establish material basis of desire as the specific form of psychic activity and to recreate the logic of its development. Theoretical basis. Culturological and economic studies of orientalists and dialectical logic. Originality. The paper presents the analysis of the perspectives and drawbacks of different approaches in desire studies. Research of ethical attitude towards the desire in Ancient China and India allowed us to recreate the logic of social relations and the level of productive forces in that society. The ideological foundation of conservation and recreation of power and property relations was found in the religious doctrine of suppression of individual desires. The connection between desire formation and division of labour and its preservation in the religious, political and legal forms of social consciousness was shown. Methodological perspectives of dialectical logic were defined in the study of logical and historical coincidence in the further development of the phenomenon and the notion of desire. Conclusions. Analysis of modern philosophical and psychological literature has revealed methodological drawbacks in desire studies, as they are focused on studying desire’s notion, its representation or separate aspects of desire in individual psyche disregarding its inner logic and material basis of its becoming. Studies of the ethical attitude towards desire in Eastern culture have shown the consensus in desire suppression of individuals and similarities between Ancient Chinese and Indian cultures. There is shown significance and material basis of the transcendental law suppressing the desires even of the higher classes of the oriental society. The methodological approach stated in this article can be applied for further desire studies of Ancient Greece culture, Christian ethics and modern society. (shrink)

In der Soziologie ist seit längerer Zeit ein zunehmendes Interesse an Architektur und Artefakten beobachtbar. Dabei wird daran erinnert, dass nicht nur immaterielle Zeichen, Symbole und Repräsentationen des Sozialen existieren, sondern auch Orte, Stoffe und Dinge. Diesen wird eine wichtige Rolle im sozialen Geschehen zugesprochen: Materiales erscheint als Träger von Erinnerungskulturen, als sozialer Akteur, Heilsvermittler, Medium von Repräsentation – kurz: als Bedingung, Beschränkung und Instrument sozialer Praxis. Dies gilt auch in Bezug auf Religion. Dennoch hat die Perspektive noch kaum Eingang (...) in die deutschsprachige Religionssoziologie gefunden. Dieser Band soll daher Anstoß sein für die Öffnung der Religionssoziologie in Richtung einer Soziologie des Materialen. (shrink)

The Scottish scholar James McCosh was a champion of the Free church, a successful and much-published philosophy professor at Belfast for 16 years, and an energetic and innovative President of Princeton University from 1868 to 1888. The Religious Aspect of Evolution was published in 1888, and this second edition from 1890 took account of A. R. Wallace's latest work, Darwinism. McCosh, who already in Ireland had developed a 'theory of the universe conditioned by Christian revelation' was one of very (...) few clergymen in America who defended evolutionary theory. He impressed upon his students that while there seemed to be great truth in Darwin's theory, the work of the coming age must be to separate that truth from the error springing up around it. This would enable scholars to follow and even embrace science while also retaining their faith in the Bible. (shrink)

This collection examines the intersections of religion and "new" materialisms. Calling upon an interdisciplinary throng of scholars in science studies, religious studies, and theology, it assembles a multiplicity of experimental perspectives on materiality: what is matter, how does it materialize, and what sort of worlds are enacted in its varied entanglements with divinity?

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This Is A New Release Of The Original 1913 Edition.

The national hero of the present-day Albania is Skanderbeg’s father, Gjon (Yuvan) Kastrioti. Despite the fact that the Albanians tried to resist the Ottomans expeditions during the reign of Gjon, they were eventually defeated. As a result of this defeat by Sultan Murad II in 1423, Gjon was forced to give his four sons as captives. The youngest of his children was Skanderbeg, who together with three older brothers was given as captive due to the defeat by the Ottomans, had (...) to reside in the palace for many years. During this time, he had the opportunity to obtain a remarkable Ottoman education and to benefit from other privileges provided for them. It is obvious that the facilities provided by the Ottomans as well as the personal abilities and skills he gained in the Ottoman Empire enabled him to achieve successes in various fields. Therefore, he was able to be promoted to important positions within the Ottoman Empire. However, some of his demands were rejected and he became deprived from some of privileges granted to him due to the promises and incentives of the opponents of the Ottomans and some small victories resulting from his father's dominance in the direction of rebellion. During this rebellion against the Ottomans, they have received both material and spiritual aid Western powers as result the warm relations they enjoyed with the Western powers. In addition, these warm relations gave the opportunity to be acquainted with the Western culture. In the course of events, it can easily be said that Skanderbeg became a renowned figure not only in the Eastern culture but also in the Western culture. After his rebellion against the Ottomans, he denounced Islam and returned to his former Christian faith. There have always been controversies about the sect he adopted related to the Christian belief whether became a Catholic or Orthodox Christian. Although he had close ties with the Pope, the greatest enemy of the Ottoman Empire, his rebellions against the Ottomans did not originate from his religion.In this study, we appealed mostly to the daily reports of the priests of the time, primarily in Albanian and Turkish and English as well. In terms of Ottoman and Turkish - Albanian relations, the issue is a very important one and therefore has occasionally been evaluated in view of the historical perspective of religions. (shrink)

Based on the concept of community, Kant's conception of religion may be connected, on my view, to the question of which mental attitude is suitable for the collective life of human society. It is possible to imagine a successful community, even if such a community does not exist in the empirical world, and to be oriented toward this ideal without ever being able to realize it. According to Kant, human moral self-understanding is developed by human reason, and this explains the (...) structural similarity between the secular republic and the Kingdom of God under the specific conditions of the enlightened consciousness of a person who thinks for herself. Thus the anthropological "fact": the self-understanding of the human being characterised by his faculty of reason. (shrink)

칸트 윤리학에서 도덕이 종교를 필요로 하는지에 대해서 크게 두 가지 해석이 가능하다. 첫째 해석은 칸트가 『도덕형이상학 기초놓기』나 『실천이성비판』과 같은 자신의 윤리학 저술에서 윤리학의 토대를 신이 아니라 인간 이성의 자율성에서 발견한 것을 근거로 칸트 윤리학을 세속적인 비종교적 윤리학으로 이해한다. 그러나 칸트 윤리학에 대한 다른 해석은 칸트가 『실천이성비판』 변증론에서 최고선의 실현 가능성 문제를 다루면서 최고선의 현세적 실현을 주장하는 에피쿠로스학파와 스토아학파의 윤리학을 비판하는 한편, 최고선의 내세적 실현을 주장하는 기독교 윤리학을 옹호하고 있다는 사실에 근거하여 칸트 윤리학을 종교적 윤리학으로 이해한다. 본 논문은 지금까지 많이 다루어지지는 (...) 않았지만 칸트 윤리학 연구를 위해 중요한 자료인 칸트의 『윤리학 강의』를 이용하여 칸트 윤리학 해석을 둘러싼 이 논란을 해결하려고 시도하였다. 자신의 다른 윤리학 저술들에서와 마찬가지로 칸트는 『윤리학 강의』에서 무엇이 도덕적으로 옳은 행위인지를 알기 위해서 신에 의존할 필요가 없음을 강조한다. 그러나 『윤리학 강의』에서 칸트는 도덕이 하나의 관념에 머무르지 않고 구속력을 갖기 위해서는, 도덕적 행위를 통해서 행복할 자격을 갖춘 사람이 실제로 행복을 희망할 수 있게 해주는 존재인 신에 대한 믿음이 필수적임을 동시에 강조한다. 우리가 칸트 윤리학을 이해할 때 도덕법의 근거가 신이 아니라 인간이성이라는 사실에만 초점을 맞춘다면 칸트 윤리학을 인간 중심의 세속적 윤리학으로 보는 것은 타당하다. 하지만 이러한 이해는 칸트 윤리학의 전체 모습이 아니라 일부만을 반영한 것임을 『윤리학 강의』를 통해 알 수 있다. (shrink)

The idea of an ideological war between science and religion, Thompson argues, is founded on a mistake. But this does not mean that there is nothing at stake. For behind the ill-conceived conflict lie complex issues about the nature of mind, consciousness, experience, subjectivity, quality, value, and the like, all of which need to be disentangled and assessed in their own right. Outgrowing Materialism leads the reader through a sequence of five “Worlds,” each of which offers a distinct way (...) of understanding (or failing to understand) these issues, and where God might belong (or not). Writing accessibly, but with a sharp eye for detail, Thompson sheds new light on the familiar territory of materialism, dualism, and structural realism, and evaluates the growing attraction of the multiverse. He argues that dualism mechanized the material world; then materialism exorcised the mental “ghost” from the machine; and finally, this machine is evaporating into pure mathematics. Outgrowing Materialism is half of Ten Ways to Weave the World: Matter, Mind, and God. The sequel, Embodying Mind, discusses five “Worlds” that precede and follow those discussed here. However, Outgrowing Materialism stands in its own right as a critique of the modern science v. religion dilemma. (shrink)

In this essay, the author tries to show the religious aspect of Rawls's work using a condition of religiosity that he himself endorsed. Section 1 looks at the passage in which Rawls asserts his condition of religiosity. In section 2, the author argues that Cohen's and Nagel's observation itself rests on a religiosity condition. In section 3, he shows how Rawls argued that Kant satisfied the religiosity condition and why Rawls thought Kant's moral philosophy has “a religious aspect.” (...) Section 4 explains that justice as fairness as presented in TJ has a religious aspect as well. In section 5, the author asks whether the religious aspect of justice as fairness survives Rawls's political turn. The chapter concludes by observing that the significance Kant gives to the moral law and our acting from it has an obvious religious aspect, and that his text occasionally has a devotional character. (shrink)

Religion is intrinsically social, and hence irretrievably organizational, although organization is often seen as the darker side of the religious experience--power, routinization, and bureaucracy. Religion and secular organizations have long received separate scholarly scrutiny, but until now their confluence has been little considered. This interdisciplinary collection of mostly unpublished papers is the first volume to remedy the deficit. The project grew out of a three-year inquiry into religious institutions undertaken by Yale University's Program on Non-Profit Organizations and sponsored (...) by the Lilly Endowment. The scholars who took part in this effort weree challenged to apply new perspectives to the study of religious organizations, especially that strand of contemporary secular organizational theory known as "New Institutionalism." The result was this groundbreaking volume, which includes papers on various aspects of such topics as the historical sources and patterns of U.S. religious organizations, contemporary patterns of denominational authority, the congregation as an organization, and the interface between religious and secular institutions and movements. The contributors include an interdisciplinary mix of scholars from economics, history, law, social administration, and sociology. (shrink)

Walter Benjamin, Religion, and Aesthetics is an innovative attempt to reconceive the key concepts of religious studies through a reading with, and against, Walter Benjamin. Brent Plate deftly sifts through Benjamin's voluminous writings showing how his concepts of art, allegory, and experience undo traditional religious concepts such as myth, symbol, memory, narrative, creation, and redemption. Recasting religion as religious practice, as process and movement, Plate locates a Benjaminian materialist aesthetics, what the author calls an "allegorical aesthetics," in (...) order to uncover sources and establish a new locus for the study of religion. Placing the concept of an allegorical aesthetics into practice, Plate offers examinations of aesthetic productions such as Daniel Libeskind's architecture and Marcel Duchamp's ready-mades alongside religious developments such as the Hindu Bhakti movement and Jewish Kabbalistic thought. Walter Benjamin, Religion, and Aesthetics will be necessary reading for those interested in religion and the arts, aesthetics, and material culture. (shrink)

Leading scholars examine religious and philosophical dimensions of the Chinese classic known as the Daodejing or Laozi.

The secular ideals have impacted on the many aspects of our modern human life but the challenge of secularization is very much felt in the realm of religion especially in Christianity. We can observe that the more society modernizes the level of its religiosity lessens. With the dominance of science, politics and economics in rational discourses and the relevance of technology, the ideology of globalization and the attitude of consumerism and materialism, religious beliefs, practices, values and institutions are (...) losing their relevance to human life and society. Societies whose religious values are historically embedded in their social institutions are continuously moving away from their religious roots towards a nonreligious orientation. In this paper I focus on the challenge of secularization and secularism to religion specifically to the Christian belief in God. First, I show that although secularization is a recent phenomenon its philosophical roots can be traced back to the modern times where some Renaissance and Enlightenment thinkers challenged the theocentric discourse of medieval thinkers. This set the stage for secularism as a counter discourse to the medieval belief in God. Second, that out of this modern thinking about God emerged two distinct attitudes towards the question of God – the attitude of the philosophers who although did not totally dismiss the notion of God reduce God to a mere idea or a product of human imagination, and on the other hand the attitude of the believers who continue to believe in the living God. Third, that although one can argue against the position of the non-believing philosophers and counter the position of secularism one appropriate response is self-criticism, that is, for the believers to take a hard look on themselves and see if God and religion are still relevant in their personal and social affairs. (shrink)

Kant is widely acknowledged as the greatest philosopher of modern times. He undertook his famous critical turn to save human freedom and morality from the challenge of determinism and materialism. Intertwined with his metaphysical interests, however, he also had theological commitments, which have received insufficient attention. He believed that man is a fallen creature and in need of ‘redemption’. He intended to provide a fortress protecting religious faith from the failure of rationalist metaphysics, from the atheistic strands of (...) the Enlightenment, from the new mathematical science of nature, and from the dilemmas of Christian theology itself. Kant was an epistemologist, a philosopher of mind, a metaphysician of experience, an ethicist and a philosopher of religion. But all this was sustained by his religious faith. This book aims to recover the focal point and inner contradictions of his thought, the ‘secret thorn’ of his metaphysics. It first locates Kant in the tradition of reflection on the human weakness from Luther to Hume, and then engages in a critical, but charitable, manner with Kant’s entire pre-critical work, including his posthumous fragments. Special attention is given to The Only Possible Ground, one of the most difficult, interesting and underestimated of Kant’s works. The book takes its cue from an older approach to Kant, but also engages with recent Anglophone and continental scholarship, and deploys modern analytical tools to make sense of Kant. What emerges is an innovative and thought-provoking interpretation of Kant’s metaphysics, set against the background of forgotten religious aspects of European philosophy. (shrink)

The so-called materialist conception of history is not only very popular in certain quarters, it is also embodied in much of the practice of historians. Yet, in spite of the current interest in philosophies of history, it is not often that one finds it seriously and critically discussed by philosophers, or indeed by anybody. One reason for this is, no doubt, that though claiming to be scientific it is closely connected with a militant political and economic creed. But there are (...) further and more honourable reasons, in the apparent comprehensiveness of the theory itself and in the lack of any comprehensive statement of it from its chief author. To some of its supporters it appears to be not merely a complete explanation of all history, past, present, and future, but also a psychology, a philosophy, and even a religion ; and yet Marx—who, if he did not originate it, is anyhow mainly responsible for its wide popularity—nowhere expounds it at any length, and for an adequate and authoritative discussion of it we must consult the correspondence of Engels, which is not gathered together in any one place. Thus, while opponents of materialism and determinism tend to reject or ignore a theory which is supposed to imply them both, opponents of Marxism are naturally unwilling to read through that author's very voluminous works for the purpose of reconstructing from his fragmentary remarks a theory that he nowhere fully states. (shrink)

The relevance of the study of the problem of Christian axiology is due to the growing interest in religion and the associated change in world outlook and values ​​in contemporary Ukrainian society. The study of religious values ​​is caused by the urgent problem of finding universal moral values ​​of social development and clarifying the content, structure and nature of their functioning. The scientific study of religious values ​​is also relevant because this problem is closely linked to the value (...) aspects of political life. Christian values ​​are one of the most important factors influencing the formation and development of Ukrainian culture. (shrink)

Various studies on the impact of religiousness on consumer ethics have produced mixed results and suggested further clarification on the issue. Therefore, this article examines the effect of religiousness, materialism, and long-term orientation on consumer ethics in Indonesia. The results from 356 respondents in Indonesia, the largest Muslim population in the world, showed that intrinsic religiousness positively affected consumer ethics, while extrinsic social religiousness negatively affected consumer ethics. However, extrinsic personal religiousness did not affect consumer ethical beliefs dimensions. Unlike (...) other studies in developed countries, materialism and long-term orientation influenced only a few of the consumer ethical beliefs dimensions in this study. To date, the study is one of the first empirical studies to explore the impact of religiousness on consumer ethics in Indonesia. The study contributes to the debate on the impact of religiousness on consumer ethics and can assist managers and public policymakers in their effort to mitigate unethical consumer activities in Indonesia. (shrink)

A vivid and accessible new translation of Cicero’s influential writings on the Stoic idea of the divine Most ancient Romans were deeply religious and their world was overflowing with gods—from Jupiter, Minerva, and Mars to countless local divinities, household gods, and ancestral spirits. One of the most influential Roman perspectives on religion came from a nonreligious belief system that is finding new adherents even today: Stoicism. How did the Stoics think about religion? In How to Think about God, Philip (...) Freeman presents vivid new translations of Cicero's On the Nature of the Gods and The Dream of Scipio. In these brief works, Cicero offers a Stoic view of belief, divinity, and human immortality, giving eloquent expression to the religious ideas of one of the most popular schools of Roman and Greek philosophy. On the Nature of the Gods and The Dream of Scipio are Cicero's best-known and most important writings on religion, and they have profoundly shaped Christian and non-Christian thought for more than two thousand years, influencing such luminaries as Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Dante, and Thomas Jefferson. These works reveal many of the religious aspects of Stoicism, including an understanding of the universe as a materialistic yet continuous and living whole in which both the gods and a supreme God are essential elements. Featuring an introduction, suggestions for further reading, and the original Latin on facing pages, How to Think about God is a compelling guide to the Stoic view of the divine. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the centrality of aspect seeing in Wittgenstein's philosophy, with some analogies between religious beliefs and aspect seeing, and with the implications of these analogies for the question of the justification of religious beliefs. If belief in God is neither a hypothesis nor a regular perceptual belief but rather a type of aspect seeing, then the kinds of proofs and justifications that are applicable to it would have to engage the non-believer in a manner (...) that would help her experience the dawning of a new aspect. This is why the standard philosophical proofs for theism, even when accepted as valid, are likely to be unsuccessful in bringing about faith. (shrink)

The relevance of the study of the problem of Christian axiology is due to the growing interest in religion and the associated change in world outlook and values ​​in contemporary Ukrainian society. The study of religious values ​​is caused by the urgent problem of finding universal moral values ​​of social development and clarifying the content, structure and nature of their functioning. However, all the basic principles of Christian doctrine acquire character of value only in the presence of subjective attitude, (...) their personal importance for the believing individual. Only in this way can religious values ​​influence the motivation of actions and determine human behavior. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 43-49 [Access article in PDF] Double Religious Belonging:Aspects and Questions Catherine Cornille College of Holy Cross at Worcester, Massachusetts The idea of double or multiple religious belonging seems to have become an integral feature of the religious culture of our times. It is no longer surprising to hear people refer to themselves as partly or fully Christian and Buddhist, and the hybridizing (...) of Jewish and Buddhist religious identities has even led to a new terminology (Jubu). While this phenomenon has been part of Asian religious cultures for centuries, it is relatively new to the West, where a combination of political and religious forces have shaped religious identities around comparatively rigid and exclusive boundaries. With the gradual dissolution of traditional geographical and spiritual monopolies by particular religions, the religious field has become wide open and religious belonging increasingly a matter of choice and degree. The phenomenon of multiple religious belonging may be found in any combination of any number of religions. There are the Jews for Jesus; Christians who have become deeply involved in Muslim (mostly Sufi) religious practices; and Hindus who also consider themselves partly Christian or—more often—vice versa. But by far the most common phenomenon in the West is that of Christians or Jews who also profess to be Buddhist, hence the importance of discussing this phenomenon in this meeting on Buddhist-Christian dialogue.In this paper, I wish to outline the different contexts in which double or multiple religious belonging seems to manifest itself so as to reflect on the possibilities and limits of the very concept or category. While different religions may have various ways of defining or circumscribing the issue of religious identity and generally allow for different degrees of belonging, I will discuss the possibility of double religious belonging on the basis of a strong—and for most religions, ideal—understanding of religious belonging. Double Religious Belonging and New Age One of the contexts in which the phenomenon of double or multiple religious belonging may seem to present itself most readily is that of the late modern or postmodern form of religiosity called "New Age." Whereas New Age religion is essentially elusive, one of the most prominent scholars of New Age, Wouter Hanegraaf, defines it as a "popular Western culture criticism expressed in terms of a secularized [End Page 43] esotericism" and refers to general characteristics such as this-worldliness, holism, evolutionism, psychologizing of religion and spiritualizing of psychology, and, of course, the belief in the advent of a New Age. 1 In addition to these characteristics, one of the most noted features of New Age religiosity is its openness toward all religious traditions and the freedom with which it combines beliefs and practices from mainly the Asian religions, the mystical strands of the monotheistic traditions, and various forms of Shamanism. This has led to the image of New Age as a form of religious bricolage or a religion of the supermarket. Often underlying New Age religiosity is the belief that all religions derive from or meet in the same ultimate religious experience, and that one may thus belong to all religions at the same time.While New Age religion may therefore be regarded as a form of multiple religious belonging, it might be more appropriate to speak here of a complete absence of religious belonging. As scholars of religion such as Joachim Wach have pointed out, religious belonging is taken to involve a "total response of the total being (feeling, will and intellect) to Ultimate Reality." 2 It involves abandonment to a transcendent reality mediated through the concrete symbols and rituals of a particular religion. Surrender is thus not to the ultimate as such, but through—and in the end—to the teachings and practices embedded in a concrete religious tradition. Religious belonging in this strong sense of the term implies the acceptance, on faith, of a particular truth revealed and transmitted outside of the immediate experience of the individual and expressed in a particular body of teachings and practices. It also generally has a certain social dimension in which individuals celebrate... (shrink)

The various schools of the Indian classical philosophy have discussed the issue how we understand the meaning from an utterance. In the present paper, I analyse the ancient controversy on this issue between two schools, Naiyāyikas and Vaiśeṣikas, and attempt to show that it has two aspects of religious and epistemological natures. Vaiśeṣikas, on the ground that the process of the verbal understanding is identical with that of the inference, claim that the verbal understanding is merely a type of (...) the inference. Naiyāyikas oppose this and assert that the former is distinct from the latter. I summarise Vaiśeṣikas’ argument into two points: (1) the similarity of the objects of the cognition and (2) that of the relations between the object and what denotes it. Naiyāyikas rejects both thesimilarities. The above discussion, which may stimulate our epistemological interest, has a close connection with the issue of scriptures. The utterance as a source of knowledge seems to have stood, in the early period, only for the scriptures, as pointed out by Hiryanna. Taking this into consideration, Vaiśeṣikas’ thesis can be understood to imply that they deny the intrinsic authority of scriptures and reduce it to the rational faculty of human beings. Naiyāyikas also deny itsintrinsic authority, but their view on the cognitive process of the verbal understanding is different from that of Vaiśeṣikas. The reason of this divergence may lie in how they treat the reliability of the speaker in respect to the cognitive process. (shrink)

This article discusses foundations and particularities of the complex approach to researches of processes and phenomena of reception of inogenetic cultural and religious elements. Based on the conception of "comprehending questioning", which, according to Martin Heidegger, is a "ground" for understanding, the author builds a methodologic scheme of the complex approach, which serves to provide a sufficient heuristical minimum in perception of referred subject of research by searching for the answers to the basic issues of scientific philosophical interest. Emphasizing (...) the role of the subject as an efficient cause in processes of cultural-religious syncretism the author focuses on importance of research of his intentions which is expressed verbally, graphically or actively. This task necessitates to differentiate exterior and interior aspects of process or phenomenon being studied. Representing a subjective world as an original place for implementation of syncretization the author gives reasons for expediency of the research of worldview paradigms and dominating idea of subject of reception using not only motivational-targeted analysis but also existential one. A complex research of subject's world relationship, his ontological, epistemological, axiological and praxeological affirmations and social, economic, political and cultural environment enhances the understanding of exogenous and endogenous factors which develop his extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Based on the interpretation of cultural norms, principles and imperatives, various degrees of subjects' readiness to accomplish or maintain receptions of inogenic elements allow to identify an analytical category of subjective "bounds of inclusivity" and make it possible to develop three-part classification of receptions, highlighting its separational, alternation and fusional types. Taking into consideration that receptions often operate as no final goal but as an implementer of more extensive plans of achieving one or another goal, the author also offers to distinguish strategy and tactics of receptions. Therefore, a process of reception is presenting as consisting of a range of aspects or steps, the consideration of which constitutes the content of suggested methodological "algorithm" for researching the processes and phenomena of reception of inogenic cultural or religious elements within the framework of the complex approach to research. (shrink)