The Western Epistemic Tradition and the Scientific Study of R... - 9781800502734

The Western Epistemic Tradition and the Scientific Study of ReligionAuthor(s): Donald Wiebe\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Equinox Publishing Ltd, United Kingdom\nImprint: Equinox Publishing Ltd\nISBN-13: 9781800502734, 978-1800502734\nSynopsis\nThis book provides an account of how a science of religion was able to emerge from the devotional, catechetical, theological, and philosophical forms of 'religious studies' that have generally characterized this field of scholarship. Although elements of the scientific study of religion can be found in the scholarly engagement with religion in the academy today, it is still primarily associated with religious and nonscientific humanistic quests for meaning, and the foundations for a flourishing existence. The idea of a scientific study of religion first emerged some 2500 years ago with the ancient Greeks but this history will show that the conditions for a strictly scientific study of religion didn't emerge until the end of the nineteenth cen.