Can Philosophy Save the Study of Religion?

What is it about?

This is an argument that the academic study of religion is a fundamentally philosophical enterprise and thus that the study of religion could benefit from a closer integration with philosophy, but also that philosophy could benefit from a greater familiarity with and more accurate understanding of the history of religions.

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Why is it important?

Currently the study of religion is in some disarray with a prominent cadre of scholars arguing that the category "religion" is nothing but a manipulative and self-serving construct of the Western academy. This paper is part of an extended argument that this is not entirely the case, but that religious behavior is a class of behavior that can and must be studied, currently in a discursive and speculative, but rigorous and carefully reasoned (in other words, philosophical) manner. At present there is no adequate paradigm or method to advance the study of religion and clarify our understanding of the category, hence the need for this speculative approach.

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