Classical Approaches to the Study of Religion
Aims, Methods, and Theories of Research. Introduction and Anthology
Waardenburg, Jacques, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017
Description
Waardenburg’s magisterial essay traces the rise and development of the academic study of religion from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, outlining the establishment of the discipline, its connections with other fields, religion as a subject of research, and perspectives on a phenomenological study of religion. Futhermore a second part comprises an anthology of texts from 41 scholars whose work was programmatic in the evolution of the academic study of religion. Each chapter presents a particular approach, theory, and method relevant to the study of religion. The pieces selected for this volume were taken from the discipline of religious studies as well as from related fields, such as anthropology, sociology, and psychology, to name a few.
(Text from the publisher)
Table of contents
Foreword: Plus ça change
Preface to the Paperback Edition
Introduction: View of a Hundred Years’ Study of Religion
Preliminary
Historical Survey
Looking Back
Anthology
Introductory Note
Part One: The Study of Religion Established as an Autonomous Discipline
F. Max Müller
Plea for a Science of Religion
The Comparative Study of Religions
Cornelis P. Tiele
‘Elements of the Science of Religion’
‘Elements of the Science of Religion’
Pierre D. Chantepie de la Saussaye
‘The Science of Religion’
Phenomenology of Religion
Part Two: Connections with Other Disciplines
Johann J. Bachofen
‘Symbol and Myth’
Matriarchy and Religion
Ernest Renan – Vindication of a Critical Mind
N. D. Fustel de Coulanges – ‘The Necessity of Studying the Earliest Beliefs of the Ancients in Order to Understand their Institutions’
Julius Wellhausen – Historical Research on the Pentateuch
William Robertson Smith – The Study of the Religion of the Semites
Friedrich C. G. Delitzsch – ‘Babel and Bible’
Albert Schweitzer – ‘The Quest of the Historical Jesus’
William James – The Study of Religious Experience
Herbert Spencer – ‘Ancestor-Worship’
Edward B. Tylor – ‘Animism’
Andrew Lang – ‘The Making of Religion’
James George Frazer – ‘The Golden Bough’ and the Study of Religion
Robert R. Marett – ‘The Tabu-Mana Formula as a Minimum Definition of Religion’
Wilhelm Schmidt
‘The Origin and Growth of Religion’
‘The Quest of the Supreme Being’
Arnold van Gennep – ‘On the Method to be Followed in the Study of Rites and Myths’
Emile Durkheim – ‘The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life’
Marcel Mauss – Classification Systems and Religion
Lucien Lévy-Bruhl – ‘Primitive Mentality’ and Religion
Max Weber – Symbolic Meaning and Religion
Sigmund Freud – Religion as Illusion
‘The Question of a Weltanschauung’
The Story of Religion
Part Three: Religion as a Special Subject of Research
Nathan Söderblom
‘The Origin of the Belief in God’
‘The Living God’
William Brede Kristensen – On the Study of Religious Phenomena
Gerardus van der Leeuw
‘Some Recent Achievements of Psychological Research and their Application to History, in Particular the History of Religion’
On Phenomenology and its Relation to Theology
On ‘Understanding’
‘Religion in Essence and Manifestation’
Beauty and Holiness
Rudolf Otto
‘The Idea of the Holy’
Religious History
Friedrich Heiler
‘Prayer’
‘The Scholarly Study of Religion’
Heinrich Frick – ‘The Aim of the Comparative Study of Religions’ (‘Typology’)
Joachim Wach
Religion and Society
On Comparative Studies in Religion
‘Universals in Religion’
‘The Concept of the “Classical” in the Study of Religions’
‘The Meaning and Task of the History of Religions (Religionswissenschaft)’
Part Four: Later Contributions from Other Disciplines
Carl Gustav Jung
On ‘Psychology of Religion’
On Myths and Archetypes
Bronislaw Malinowski – The Study of ‘Primitive Man’ and His Religion
Robert H. Lowie – On the Term ‘Religion’
Paul Radin
‘The Nature and Substance of Religion’
‘Primitive Man as Philosopher’
The Religious and the Non-Religious Man
Alfred R. Radcliffe-Brown – ‘Religion and Society’
Martin P. Nilsson
On Method and Theory
On the Advancements Made in the Study of Greek Religion
On Religion
Walter F. Otto
On the Study of Greek Religion: ‘The Homeric Gods’
On the Greek Gods and on Myth
Part Five: Perspectives of a Phenomenological Study of Religion
Raffaele Pettazzoni – ‘“History” and “Phenomenology” in the Science of Religion’
Hendrik Kraemer – On the Presuppositions and Limits of the Science of Religion
Max Scheler – Psychology, ‘Concrete’ and ‘Essential’ Phenomenology of Religion
Gaston Berger – On Phenomenological Research in the Field of Religion
Sources and Acknowledgments
Indexes
Introductory Note
Index of Personal Names
Index of Scholarly Concepts
Index of Concrete Subjects
Link
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110473599/html