Prioritizing practice in the study of religion: normative and descriptive orientations

ABSTRACT

Calls to prioritize practice in the study of religion typically claim that attention to lived practices rather than merely to ‘belief’ is needed if a given religious tradition or instance of religiosity is to be understood. Within that broad ambit, certain empirical researchers, as well as some Wittgenstein-influenced philosophers of religion, investigate the diversity of religious practices without passing judgement, whereas certain other philosophers foreground a narrower selection of examples while deploying moral criteria to distinguish acceptable from unacceptable religion. Characterizing this methodological divergence in terms of descriptive versus normative orientations, the present article argues that while attention to practice is indeed vital, the imposition of normative evaluation is liable to inhibit an appreciation of the radical plurality of religious phenomena.

KEYWORDS:

• Practice
• praxis
• lived religion
• John Cottingham
• Pierre Hadot
• humane philosophy of religion

Acknowledgements

Earlier versions of this article were discussed at a Theology and Religious Studies Research Seminar at the University of Leeds, 17 February 2016, and at the Fourth Glasgow Philosophy of Religion Seminar, University of Glasgow, 27 May 2016. I am grateful to participants in those events for helpful comments and questions. Two referees for this journal also offered pertinent and encouraging remarks.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Hall, “Introduction,” xi.

2. Cottingham, The Spiritual Dimension, 5.

3. Smith, “Philosophy of Religion Takes Practice,” 133 et passim; and Thinking in Tongues, ch. 5.

4. Cottingham, Philosophy of Religion, 171.

5. Cottingham, The Spiritual Dimension, 16, 152.

6. Schmidt, “Practices of Exchange,” 70.

7. Orsi, “Everyday Miracles,” 7, 6.

8. See e.g. Cottingham, On the Meaning of Life, 96; The Spiritual Dimension, 5, 151, 153; and Philosophy of Religion, 155.

9. Cottingham, The Spiritual Dimension, 5.

10. Ibid., 6.

11. Aside from Cottingham, others who cite Hadot’s work favourably include: Wynn, Emotional Experience and Religious Understanding, 134–8; Smith, “Philosophy of Religion Takes Practice,” 138; Thinking in Tongues, 114; and the various contributors to Chase et al., Philosophy as a Way of Life.

12. Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, 82-3.

13. Ibid., 128.

14. Ibid., 104.

15. Cottingham, The Spiritual Dimension, 8.

16. Ibid., 16. See also Cottingham, Philosophy of Religion, 154-5.

17. Cottingham, The Spiritual Dimension, 151, 152.

18. Ibid., 154.

19. Ibid., 17.

20. See Davie, “The Evolution of the Sociology of Religion,” 67; and Arnold, “Histories and Historiographies of Medieval Christianity,” 30-1.

21. Cf. Cheng, “Chinese Religions,” 40; and Platvoet, “To Define or Not to Define,” 245.

22. Gregg and Scholefield, Engaging with Living Religion, 7, 14.

23. Orsi, “Everyday Miracles,” 7. Cf. McBride, “Sartre and Lived Experience”; and Holveck, Simone de Beauvoir's Philosophy of Lived Experience.

24. Orsi, “Everyday Miracles,” 7.

25. Streib et al., “Introduction,” x. Cf. McGuire, Lived Religion, 12.

26. Orsi, “Everyday Miracles,” 11.

27. See e.g. acknowledgements of Wittgenstein in Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, 29-30; Needham, Belief, Language, and Experience; Geertz, Available Light, xi–xiii; and Das, Life and Words.

28. For discussion of ‘family resemblance’ in relation to the concept of religion, see Saler, Conceptualizing Religion, ch. 5.

29. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigation, §23.

30. Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, 97e.

31. See Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigation, §66; and The Blue and Brown Books, 17-18.

32. Phillips, “Religious Beliefs and Language-Games,” 37.

33. For discussion and further references, see Burley, “‘Being Near Enough to Listen’.”

34. See Phillips, “Philosophy’s Radical Pluralism,” 204-5.

35. See Hick, An Interpretation of Religion, esp. ch. 18, “The Ethical Criterion.”

36. Orsi, “Everyday Miracles,” 15.

37. McGuire, Lived Religion, 116.

38. Ibid., 117. For McGuire’s reservations, see ibid., 237 n. 65. For the phrase ‘one-sided diet’, see Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §593.

39. McGuire, Lived Religion, 117.

40. See e.g. Phillips, “Philosophy’s Radical Pluralism,” 205.

41. Here I am quoting Churchill, “Something Deep and Sinister,” 18, who is himself borrowing the phrase ‘deep and sinister’ from Wittgenstein, Remarks on Frazer’s ‘Golden Bough’, 16e. See also Kerr, Theology after Wittgenstein, 160–2.

42. Phillips, Religion and Friendly Fire, 88.

43. See Antonaccio, A Philosophy to Live By, esp. 127-8; and “Spirituality and the ‘Humane Turn’.”

44. Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, 212; cf. Antonaccio, A Philosophy to Live By, 135; and “Spirituality and the ‘Humane Turn’,” 51.

45. Antonaccio, “Spirituality and the ‘Humane Turn’,” 52.

46. Haldane, “On the Very Idea of Spiritual Values,” esp. 68-9.

47. Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, 208; and cf. Antonaccio, “Spirituality and the ‘Humane Turn’,” 53.

48. Cottingham, On the Meaning of Life, 79; The Spiritual Dimension, 4-5, 7-8; and Philosophy of Religion, 149-50.

49. Cottingham, How to Believe, 66.

50. This point is noted, for example, by Proudfoot, “Review of John Cottingham,” 550. For instances of such sliding, see Cottingham, How to Believe, 61, 69, 70.

51. Cottingham, Why Believe? 152.

52. Objections to Cottingham’s approach similar to those I make in this paragraph are presented in Oppy, “Review of John Cottingham.” I am grateful to an anonymous referee for this journal for bringing Oppy’s review to my attention.

53. Cottingham, The Spiritual Dimension, 3. For mention of ‘new age spirituality’, see idem, Philosophy of Religion, 154.

54. Cottingham, The Spiritual Dimension, 3.

55. Ibid.

56. Ibid., 168–70.

57. Cottingham, Philosophy of Religion, 171; Cottingham’s italics.

58. Cottingham, Why Believe? 165.

59. Wynn, Faith and Place, back cover.

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Mikel Burley

Mikel Burley is an associate professor of religion and philosophy at the University of Leeds. His publications include Rebirth and the Stream of Life: A Philosophical Study of Reincarnation, Karma and Ethics (New York: Bloomsbury, 2016) and Contemplating Religious Forms of Life: Wittgenstein and D. Z. Phillips (New York: Continuum, 2012). His current research explores the intersection between philosophy, ethnography and narrative fiction in the study of religion.