After We Deconstruct ‘Religion,’ Then What? A Case for Critical Realism

Abstract

Some scholars of religion have turned their attention from religion to "religion" and have then deconstructed the conceptual category, arguing that the concept of religion is an invention of the scholar that corresponds to nothing. In Schilbrack (2012), I used the work of Tim Fitzgerald to identify what such arguments get right and what they get wrong. In the present reply to Fitzgerald, I make a case for critical realism as a methodological stance for the study of religion that can learn from deconstructive approaches without abandoning the concept Schilbrack, kevin (2013)

Reverse-engineering ‘esotericism': how to prepare a complex cultural concept for the cognitive science of religion

“…McCutcheon 2014). While the call for critical reflection on concepts like 'religion,' 'magic,' and 'ritual' is reproduced time and again, surprisingly little has been said about what to do after the fuzzy complexity and dubious discursive origin of problematic terms have been exposed (Schilbrack 2013;but see suggestions in von Stuckrad 2013;Bergunder 2014). This situation is deeply unfortunate, not only for the obvious reason that new theorizing requires A brief introduction to the building block approach…”

Pushing the Boundaries

“…This paper has been informed by the methodological approach to the study of religion which sees its subject as the product of historically emergent and politically invested ways of speaking and living (Schilbrack 2013). It has argued that examining the ways in which legal norms and processes are influential in the construction of boundaries between religion and non-religion is a potentially fruitful approach in the deconstruction of religion as an analytic category.…”

A metaphysics for the study of religion: A critical reading of Russell McCutcheon

“…Kevin Schilbrack https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8930-0290 Notes 1. See Schilbrack 2010Schilbrack , 2012Schilbrack , 2013Schilbrack , 2017Schilbrack , 2018Schilbrack , 2019 2. For a short introduction to critical realism for sociologists, see Gorski (2013); for a sustained overview, see Porpora (2015).…”