This paper offers a critique of the special issue of Human Studies on “Alfred Schutz and Religion”. Following a line similar to that of Dominique Janicaud I call into question the very phenomenological status of the “phenomenology of religion” developed across the various contributions. Appealing to the Husserlian principle of freedom from presuppositions my critique focuses on the way these phenomenologies of religion talk about “religion”. At their core, the failure contained within these contributions is the failure to properly consider (...) a question which begins any undergraduate Religious Studies program—what is “religion”? I charge that because these contributions take it as “self-evident” what religion “is” they allow a metaphysical assertion into their phenomenology which breaches the “neutrality” demanded of the principle of freedom from presuppositions. Drawing on the work of the Critical Religion project in Religious Studies I further highlight how this metaphysical assertion predicates an unavoidable ideological assertion, one which serves colonial mechanics of exclusion. (shrink)

One of the key insights of Scheler’s approach to the topic intersubjectivity is to recognise that the problem of intersubjectivity is in fact several problems. In The Nature of Sympathy, Scheler lays out an order of precedence in which these problems need to be addressed. One of his major criticisms against analogical arguments and theories of empathy is that they violate this order. Specifically, they provide accounts of what the Other is thinking, but treat this as a solution to how (...) we recognise the Other as Other. In responding to Scheler, Schutz takes up this order of precedence but then makes the signifi cantly bolder claim that intersubjectivity as possibility is not problematic and does not require a solution. The purpose of this paper is to show that Schutz’s argument relies on a Husserlian reading of Scheler’s use of “transcendental psychology” and that rather than sidestepping the problem Schutz in fact tacitly presupposes a solution in the form of the human prejudice. Significantly, this solution radically overturns the aims of Scheler’s phenomenology and even that of the broader Phenomenological Movement. (shrink)

In The Human Place in the Cosmos Max Scheler argues the question of philosophical anthropology must address three problems: the difference between man and animal; the Cartesian problem of the mind and body; and the essence of spirit. In a recent issue of Human Studies, two articles by Cristian Ciocan and Christian Ferencz-Flatz addressed the first of these problems through investigations of Husserl’s Nachlass. In this paper, I respond primarily to Ciocan by drawing on Scheler’s phenomenology and the implications this (...) has for understanding Husserl’s phenomenology. By looking at Husserl’s published comments, we can see how the attempt to differentiate between man and animal is bound up with his understanding of spirituality. This allows an alternative way of understanding normality and abnormality which shifts emphasises away from how far we can empathise with the Other to emphasise what it means to be normal or abnormal. This will allow us to address an ambiguity of Husserl identified by Ferencz-Flatz. (shrink)

It is the contention of this paper that the majority of scholars deal with a simplified notion of Schutz’s understanding of social science. Specifically they tend to view Schutz’s understanding of social science as containing only three postulates: logical consistency, subjective interpretation, and adequacy. However, such considerations tend to focus primarily upon “Common-Sense and Scientific Interpretation of Human Action” and only engage with Schutz’s other essays in a tertiary manner. This paper argues that only by giving due attention to Schutz’s (...) other work does it become clear what his full understanding social science is. A full picture must necessarily take into account the postulate of relevance or disinterestedness, postulate of clarity, and postulate of compatibility or tested observation. This paper will clarify the relationship of all these postulates which will necessarily require a number of amendments in order to achieve the greatest clarity possible. (shrink)

Whether understood in a narrow sense as the popular works of a small number of authors, or as a larger more diffuse movement, twenty-first century scholars, journalists, and activists from all ‘sides’ in the atheism versus theism debate, have noted the emergence of a particular form of atheism frequently dubbed ‘New Atheism’. The present collection has been brought together to provide a scholarly yet accessible consideration of the place and impact of ‘New Atheism’ in the contemporary world. Combining traditional and (...) innovative approaches, chapters draw on the insights of philosophers, religious studies scholars, sociologists, anthropologists, and literary critics to provide never-before-seen insights into the relationship between ‘New Atheism’, science, gender, sexuality, space, philosophy, fiction and much more. With contributions from Australia, Germany and the United Kingdom, the volume also presents diversity in regard to religious/irreligious commitment, with contributions from atheists, theists and more agnostic orientations. New Atheism: Critical Perspectives and Contemporary Debates features an up-to-date overview of current research on ‘New Atheism’, a Foreword from Stephen Bullivant, and eleven new chapters with extensive bibliographies that will be important to both a general audience and to those conducting research in this area. It provides a much-needed fresh look at a contentious phenomenon, and will hopefully encourage the cooperation and dialogue which has predominantly been lacking in relevant contemporary debates. (shrink)

To date, the study of “religion” and “martial arts” is a lacuna of the field in Religious Studies in which the depth of association has long gone unrecognised. What little study there is, however, suffers from a practitioner’s bias in that those writing on martial arts are also attempting to promote the agenda of their own discipline. This paper attempts a more critical approach to show the study of martial arts can contribute to the ongoing problematisation of “religion” as an (...) analytic category, particularly in its relation to “the secular” and “nationalism”. To do this I will draw on the philosophical phenomenology of Husserl, Sartre and Schutz to argue that “religions”, “nationalisms” and “martial arts” are all names given to modes of naturalisation. By this I mean they are means by which a person “fits” within their life-world and deals with the problems of surviving and thriving. In this case of martial arts, these can be seen as modes of naturalisation through debates on “sportification”. As commonly conceived, the sportification of a martial art risks impeding its “spiritual” aspects. It is the martial artists’ understanding of “spiritual” as something public and serious that mark it out as a mode of naturalisation. In the case of “religion” and “nationalism” these are ideological means of categorising modes of naturalisation, primarily as a means of “Othering”. By looking at the case of Kendo and its origins in the samurai, this paper will show the fluidity with which these ascriptions can be applied to a single “tradition” depending on context. (shrink)