Toward a Volitional Definition of Religion
This article advocates for the production of stipulative definitions of religion, a type of nominal definition that articulates new ways of applying a word to a thing. I propose that scholars look to sites where phenomena historically have been labeled “religion” on lexical or real understandings of...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press
[2020]
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| In: |
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
Year: 2020, Volume: 88, Issue: 3, Pages: 664-692 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Religion
/ Definition
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| IxTheo Classification: | AA Study of religion |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | This article advocates for the production of stipulative definitions of religion, a type of nominal definition that articulates new ways of applying a word to a thing. I propose that scholars look to sites where phenomena historically have been labeled “religion” on lexical or real understandings of the term, this to query how religious agents there chose, implicitly or explicitly, to systematize thought, speech, emotion, and action. Such self-consciously ordered systems, I argue, may properly be labeled “religion.” Next, I apply this method to premodern South Asia, suggesting “religion” refers to the second-order structuring there that links normative social relations to normative states of subjectivity, any innovation in the one demanding innovation in the other. I conclude by inviting other efforts at stipulative definition, all with an eye toward an inductive approach, allowing that the myriad locations of religion present mutually distinguishable systems that may all properly be so labeled. |
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| ISSN: | 1477-4585 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: American Academy of Religion, Journal of the American Academy of Religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/jaarel/lfaa022 |