6 - Beyond Philosophical Argument

Summary

It is suggested that current religious studies are distorted by what sociologists sometimes call recipe knowledge, especially in relation to the common assumption – still partially valid – that religion should no longer be seen in essentialist or perennialist terms. The possibility of neo-perennialism is explored. Widespread assumptions about projecting onto faith traditions ‘essentialist’ understandings are critiqued, particularly in relation to Buddhism, and common assumptions about the inapplicability of terms such as religion and myth are questioned. In this context, evolutionary perspectives are important because ‘dual process’ notions of human cognition may be applied to the historical development of human religiosity. This means that a revived recognition of a universal aspect of human religiosity is necessary, based not on very questionable anthropological speculations of the kind that became common in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries but on current exploration of brain functioning and of its evolutionary development.