The future of the past : the history of religions and cognitive historiography

Title:

The future of the past : the history of religions and cognitive historiography

Creator:

Martin, Luther H.

Identifier:

https://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/125418

Subject:

Religionswissenschaft, scientific study of religion, historiography, historiographical theory, evolutionary theory, cognitive science, cognitive historiography, and Study of Religions

Type:

Article

Format:

text/pdf

Description:

The proposal for a scientific study of religions (Religionswissenschaft) was born of the scientific impulse that swept Europe from the mid-nineteenth century and that gave birth to the study of history itself as a scientific and autonomous discipline. Increasingly, however, historians of religion abandoned historical methods altogether and the study of religion became associated with an a historical approach in which "history of religions" became a synonym for assembling a phenomenological corpus of truncated and decontextualized cultural data, the temporality of which was disregarded in favor of claims to their being manifestations of a sui generis sacrality. A history of religions, informed by the insights of the new cognitive sciences, can draw upon well-founded theory that can supplement and provide correctives to traditional historiographical tools. Nevertheless, the weight of the 150 history of the study of religion suggests that the future of the study of religion will inevitably differ little from that of its past.

Language:

English

Rights:

unknown

Relation:

https://digilib.phil.muni.cz/en/handle/11222.digilib/124610
https://digilib.phil.muni.cz/en/_flysystem/fedora/pdf/125418.pdf

Harvested from:

Digital Library of Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University

Metadata only:

false

Date:

2012