The Scientification of Religion
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Kocku von Stuckrad
About this book
The enigmatic relation between religion and science still presents a challenge to European societies and to ideas about what it means to be ‘modern.’ This book argues that European secularism, rather than pushing back religious truth claims, in fact has been religiously productive itself. The institutional establishment of new disciplines in the nineteenth century, such as religious studies, anthropology, psychology, classical studies, and the study of various religious traditions, led to a professionalization of knowledge about religion that in turn attributed new meanings to religion. This attribution of meaning resulted in the emergence of new religious identities and practices. In a dynamic that is closely linked to this discursive change, the natural sciences adopted religious and metaphysical claims and integrated them in their framework of meaning, resulting in a special form of scientific religiosity that has gained much influence in the twentieth century. Applying methods that come from historical discourse analysis, the book demonstrates that religious semantics have been reconfigured in the secular sciences. Ultimately, the scientification of religion perpetuated religious truth claims under conditions of secularism.
Author / Editor information
Kocku von Stuckrad, University of Groningen, The Netherlands.
Supplementary Materials
Topics
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Frontmatter
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Preface
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Contents
xi -
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1. Religion and Science in Discursive Perspective
1 - Part One: Discarded Knowledge and Its New Legitimacy in Secular Discourse
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2. From Polemical Disjunction to New Integration: The Science of the Stars
25 -
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3. Alchemical Quests in Modern Garb
56 -
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4. Darwinism Turned into Religion: Monism
76 -
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5. Merging Occultism, Philosophy, Science, and the Academic Study of Religion: The Theosophical Society
94 - Part Two: Academics as Religious Pioneers
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6. The Trouble with Europe: Academic Orientalism and New Mystical Religions
115 -
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7. In Search of the Great Goddess: How Academic Theories Generated Paganism and Witchcraft
139 -
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8. Normatizing Shamanism: Academic Teachers as Religious Experts
159 -
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Conclusion: The Scientification of Religion
178 -
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Bibliography
183 -
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Index
211
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