Religious Symbols

Abstract

In this essay, I survey the different uses of the concept of the symbol at play in the philosophy of religion. Considering that historically theories of the symbol have frequently had significant religious presuppositions and implications, I suggest that one might expect that the symbol would play a significant role in current research. This is not the case, however, since the very specific metaphysical, linguistic and theological premises that have traditionally informed much theorisation of the symbol tend to be unpopular today. The main exception is Peircean symbolics which has recently been re‐appropriated by a variety of philosophical fields, including philosophy of religion. To open up further contexts for contemporary deployments of the symbol, I look to contemporary public and legal debates concerning the right to wear religious symbols as an area of research unjustly neglected by philosophers of religion: much of the inchoate conceptual work being done in the legal cases themselves would naturally feed into academic philosophical discussion of the symbol.

Symbolic Religious Landscape: Religious and Patriotic Symbolism in the Pilgrimage Centres in Poland

“…Pilgrimage centres were mentioned as one of the elements sacralising landscape. Papers dealing with religious symbolism, the sacralisation of religious landscape constitute the theoretical basis of the article (Bilska-Wodecka 2004Boyer 2011;Bryce and Roberts 1996;Cosgrove 1985;Jones 1918;Hulme 2017;Holly 2014;Lilley 2000Lilley , 2004Mâle 1984;Myga-Pi ątek 2012;Przybylska 2014;Whistler 2016).…”