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Radical reductionism in the psychological study of religion: Prospects for an alternative critical methodology1

Radical reductionism in the psychological study of religion: Prospects for an alternative... Radical reductionism in the psychological study of religion: Prospects for an alternative critical methodology1 By DOUGLAS S. HARDY The scholarly enterprise known as the psychology of religion can be understood as the psychological study of religious practice, belief, and experience. With one foot in the stream of psychological theory and research and the other in the flow of religious experience and understanding, it seeks to illuminate the latter through use of the former. In other words, religion becomes the object of psychological analysis, that is, in some sense subordinated to psychology (Wulff, 1997). This rel- ative inequality raises significant methodological issues for anyone attempting to study religion in this way. In particular, one is confronted with the prospect of be- coming reductionistic, that is, of explaining what is in fact a complex phenome- non in terms too simple and uni-dimensional, distorting (or at least diminishing) the object of study in the process. Is the Psychology of Religion Reductionistic? Charges of reductionism in the psychology of religion tend to come from those who have a vested interest in asserting the uniqueness of religion. There are theo- logians and religious scholars who study religion from other, more traditional re- ligious http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Archive for the Psychology of Religion Brill

Radical reductionism in the psychological study of religion: Prospects for an alternative critical methodology1

Hardy, Douglas S.
Archive for the Psychology of Religion , Volume 25 (1): 25 – Jan 1, 2003
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References (5)

Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 2003 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0084-6724
eISSN
1573-6121
DOI
10.1163/157361203X00020
Publisher site
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Abstract

Radical reductionism in the psychological study of religion: Prospects for an alternative critical methodology1 By DOUGLAS S. HARDY The scholarly enterprise known as the psychology of religion can be understood as the psychological study of religious practice, belief, and experience. With one foot in the stream of psychological theory and research and the other in the flow of religious experience and understanding, it seeks to illuminate the latter through use of the former. In other words, religion becomes the object of psychological analysis, that is, in some sense subordinated to psychology (Wulff, 1997). This rel- ative inequality raises significant methodological issues for anyone attempting to study religion in this way. In particular, one is confronted with the prospect of be- coming reductionistic, that is, of explaining what is in fact a complex phenome- non in terms too simple and uni-dimensional, distorting (or at least diminishing) the object of study in the process. Is the Psychology of Religion Reductionistic? Charges of reductionism in the psychology of religion tend to come from those who have a vested interest in asserting the uniqueness of religion. There are theo- logians and religious scholars who study religion from other, more traditional re- ligious

Journal

Archive for the Psychology of Religion – Brill

Published: Jan 1, 2003

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