More than belief: A materialist theory of religion
More than belief: A materialist theory of religion
复制标题
不仅仅是信仰：唯物主义的宗教理论
DOI：
--
复制
发表时间：
2011
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Paul
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Paul
读一本希望自己写的书是令人恼火的，更糟糕的是，知道自己不可能写得这么好。这本优秀的卷提供了一个全面的重新解释，特别是与宗教研究有关的哲学和人类学理论和辩论(S)，作为赞成从研究宗教研究中的文本和思想转向研究历史和社会偶发的、情境的和具体的实践的更一般论点的一部分。这其中的核心是身体的回归：移动的、有纪律的、生物上受限制的和有能力的、脆弱的、美丽的，不是一个原子化的身体，而是一个在世界中的身体。瓦斯克斯的博学和视野和专业知识的广度令人印象深刻，他令人信服地展示了跨越大陆现象学(海德格尔)、后结构主义(福柯)、社会学和人类学(毛斯和布迪厄)和宗教研究(特威德)以及许多其他学科的令人信服的交叉，此外，在一个重新设想21世纪宗教研究主题领域的项目中。在这个节骨眼上，我要提出的一个总体观点是，通过对西方社会理论或思想的全面重新解释，来论证一种具体的唯物主义的悖论。此外，这本书中还有一些奇怪的时刻：还原论和方法论不可知论的古老幽灵萦绕在它的页面上；有一些真正离奇的因果关系归属；巴斯克斯似乎对克劳德·L·埃维-施特劳斯的工作奇怪地矛盾，而他对马克思、布尔迪厄和福柯等人的处理使他们著作中的政治内容变得沉默。最后，考虑到本书其余部分的知识严谨，关于唯物主义宗教理论可能会是什么感觉的结束语相当陈词滥调，很可能会让读者失望和困惑。我将依次介绍这几点。还原论和方法论不可知论是宗教研究中传统、理论和方法论辩论领域的关键里程碑。瓦斯克斯声称，他的唯物主义版本“是非还原的，因为它突出了复杂性、层级间的连通性、涌现性、情境知识，以及相对的不确定性和开放性，而不是单一因果、单向和总体性的解释方案”(第5页)。这里的问题是，他在驳斥一种从来不存在的简化论。所有的宗教理论都必须与猜想和反驳的学术辩论和争论的推力和拉力作斗争，因此没有一种理论拥有巴斯克斯所说的“总和”力量。这并不是否认某些理论方法在社会科学和人文科学中的霸权地位，甚至是它们与
It is irritating to read a book one wishes one had written oneself and worse to know that one could not have done it so well. This excellent volume offers a comprehensive re-interpretation of, in particular, philosophical and anthropological theories and debates pertinent to the study of religion(s) as part of a more general argument in favour of a turn away from the study of texts and ideas in religious studies to the study of historically and socially contingent, situated and embodied practices. Central to this is the return of the body: mobile, disciplined, biologically constrained and enabled, vulnerable, beautiful and not an atomised body but rather a body-in-the-world. Vásquez’ erudition and breadth of vision and expertise are impressive, and he persuasively demonstrates compelling intersections across continental phenomenology (Heidegger), post-structuralism (Foucault), sociology and anthropology (Mauss and Bourdieu) and religious studies (Tweed) and much else besides, in a project to re-envision the subject field of religious studies for the twenty-first century. A general point to be made at this juncture regards the paradox of arguing for an embodied materialism via a comprehensive re-interpretation of Western social theory or ideas. Moreover, there are some odd moments in this volume: the old spectres of reductionism and methodological agnosticism haunt its pages; there are some truly bizarre attributions of causality; Vásquez seems strangely ambivalent towards the work of Claude Lévi-Strauss while his handling of the likes of Marx, Bourdieu and Foucault mutes the political content of their writings. Finally, the concluding remarks as to what a materialist theory of religion might feel like are rather trite considering the intellectual rigour that characterises the rest of the book and are likely to leave the readers disappointed and perplexed. I shall take these points in turn. Reductionism and methodological agnosticism are key landmarks in the terrain of traditional, theoretical and methodological debates in religious studies. Vásquez claims that his version of materialism ‘is non-reductive because it highlights complexity, inter-level connectivity, emergence, situated knowledge, and relative indeterminacy and openness against monocausal, unidirectional, and totalizing explanatory schemes’ (p. 5). The problem here is that he is refuting a reductionism that has never existed. All theories of religion have had to contend with the push-andpull of scholarly debate and argument – of conjecture and refutation – and as such none have had the ‘totalising’ power that Vásquez suggests. This is not to deny the hegemony of certain theoretical approaches in the social and human sciences generally and indeed their configuration alongside or embeddedness within the