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Global Translations: Conceptualizing Differentiations Between ‘Religion’ and ‘Science’ in Thailand and the Philippines in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

  • Adrian Hermann
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Historicizing Secular-Religious Demarcations
This chapter is in the book Historicizing Secular-Religious Demarcations

Abstract

Building on the hypothesis that the emergence of ‘religion’ as a global category is characterized by the establishment of a number of ‘distinctions of religion,’ this paper traces differentiations between ‘science’ and ‘religion’ in two case studies: encounters between Buddhist elites and Christian missionaries in nineteenth-century Thailand, and the early history of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI), an independent Catholic movement in the Philippines around 1900. In Thailand, the contentious relationship between Buddhist descriptions of the cosmos and scientific knowledge spread by Christian missionaries became a core aspect of Buddhist modernism. In the Philippines, the establishment of the IFI was accompanied by publications in which Filipino intellectuals discussed issues of ‘religion’ and ‘science,’ and located their new church in a global framework of comparative religious history. I use this material to reflect on how to conceive of processes of distinction and differentiation between science and religion around 1900, with a special focus on Lydia H. Liu’s notion of “translingual practice,” and on Georg W. Bertram’s account of Jacques Derrida’s philosophical reflections on translation and the emergence of meaning in language.

Abstract

Building on the hypothesis that the emergence of ‘religion’ as a global category is characterized by the establishment of a number of ‘distinctions of religion,’ this paper traces differentiations between ‘science’ and ‘religion’ in two case studies: encounters between Buddhist elites and Christian missionaries in nineteenth-century Thailand, and the early history of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI), an independent Catholic movement in the Philippines around 1900. In Thailand, the contentious relationship between Buddhist descriptions of the cosmos and scientific knowledge spread by Christian missionaries became a core aspect of Buddhist modernism. In the Philippines, the establishment of the IFI was accompanied by publications in which Filipino intellectuals discussed issues of ‘religion’ and ‘science,’ and located their new church in a global framework of comparative religious history. I use this material to reflect on how to conceive of processes of distinction and differentiation between science and religion around 1900, with a special focus on Lydia H. Liu’s notion of “translingual practice,” and on Georg W. Bertram’s account of Jacques Derrida’s philosophical reflections on translation and the emergence of meaning in language.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Contents V
  3. Introduction 1
  4. Part I Premodern Boundary Negotiations: Self-Distinctions of the Religious Sphere
  5. Dynamics of Differentiation from Charlemagne to Dante. Medieval Christian Debates on Religion and Politics beyond the Model of a “Separation of Church and State” 15
  6. Secularity and Differentiation in Late Antiquity. The Case of Augustine of Hippo 51
  7. Monasticism, Differentiation and Secularization: Talcott Parsons and the Catholic ‘Monastic Movement’ in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries 79
  8. Negotiating the Boundaries between Religion and Science in the Abbasid Empire 105
  9. Religious and Secular in Premodern Islam and Christianity 125
  10. Part II Colonial Boundaries: Religion, Culture, and “Middle Things”
  11. King, Messiah, and Culture in the Making of Zulu Secularity 157
  12. The “Middle Things”. Differentiating between the Religious Spheres in Indian and African Mission Contexts in the Nineteenth Century 189
  13. Beyond Non-Catholic/Catholic (Luong/Giao) Separation: Missionary Expansion and Divergent Manifestations of Religious Differentiation in Colonial Vietnam 213
  14. Part III Competing Epistemes: Lessons Learned From Asia
  15. The Autonomy of Science vis-a-vis Religion: Amitav Ghosh’s The Calcutta Chromosome as a Theoretical Counter-Narrative to the Western Master Narrative of Functional Differentiation 239
  16. Global Translations: Conceptualizing Differentiations Between ‘Religion’ and ‘Science’ in Thailand and the Philippines in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries 271
  17. Demarcating Religion: On the Varying Ways of Conceptualizing Social Differentiation in Japanese History 301
  18. Rethinking the Place of Religion and Worldviews in Differentiation Theory: A Historical Comparison between Chinese and European Societies 329
  19. Part IV Programmatic Proposals: Differentiation Theory and the Sociology of Religion and Secularity
  20. The Fragmentation of the Sacred: An Alternative Narrative of Western Modernity 359
  21. Rigid Differentiation Theory and Flexible Sociology of Religion? 379
  22. After Autonomy. Relationships between Art and Religion in Nineteenth Century Germany and their Implications for Differentiation Theory 407
  23. Beyond Normative Binaries: Neutral Zones as Precursors and Starting Points of Secularity 437
  24. The Authors 467
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111386645-011

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Contents V
  3. Introduction 1
  4. Part I Premodern Boundary Negotiations: Self-Distinctions of the Religious Sphere
  5. Dynamics of Differentiation from Charlemagne to Dante. Medieval Christian Debates on Religion and Politics beyond the Model of a “Separation of Church and State” 15
  6. Secularity and Differentiation in Late Antiquity. The Case of Augustine of Hippo 51
  7. Monasticism, Differentiation and Secularization: Talcott Parsons and the Catholic ‘Monastic Movement’ in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries 79
  8. Negotiating the Boundaries between Religion and Science in the Abbasid Empire 105
  9. Religious and Secular in Premodern Islam and Christianity 125
  10. Part II Colonial Boundaries: Religion, Culture, and “Middle Things”
  11. King, Messiah, and Culture in the Making of Zulu Secularity 157
  12. The “Middle Things”. Differentiating between the Religious Spheres in Indian and African Mission Contexts in the Nineteenth Century 189
  13. Beyond Non-Catholic/Catholic (Luong/Giao) Separation: Missionary Expansion and Divergent Manifestations of Religious Differentiation in Colonial Vietnam 213
  14. Part III Competing Epistemes: Lessons Learned From Asia
  15. The Autonomy of Science vis-a-vis Religion: Amitav Ghosh’s The Calcutta Chromosome as a Theoretical Counter-Narrative to the Western Master Narrative of Functional Differentiation 239
  16. Global Translations: Conceptualizing Differentiations Between ‘Religion’ and ‘Science’ in Thailand and the Philippines in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries 271
  17. Demarcating Religion: On the Varying Ways of Conceptualizing Social Differentiation in Japanese History 301
  18. Rethinking the Place of Religion and Worldviews in Differentiation Theory: A Historical Comparison between Chinese and European Societies 329
  19. Part IV Programmatic Proposals: Differentiation Theory and the Sociology of Religion and Secularity
  20. The Fragmentation of the Sacred: An Alternative Narrative of Western Modernity 359
  21. Rigid Differentiation Theory and Flexible Sociology of Religion? 379
  22. After Autonomy. Relationships between Art and Religion in Nineteenth Century Germany and their Implications for Differentiation Theory 407
  23. Beyond Normative Binaries: Neutral Zones as Precursors and Starting Points of Secularity 437
  24. The Authors 467
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