Exploring the Changing Contours of "Enchantment"
By the phrase "disenchantment of the world" (Entzauberung der Welt), Max Weber meant: i) an understanding of the world increasingly by reference to natural forces, physical laws, and mechanical principles than to magical and supernatural powers; and ii) a development within religion from m...
| Published in: | Implicit religion |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Equinox
2021
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| In: |
Implicit religion
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| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Weber, Max 1864-1920
/ Rationality
/ Charms
/ Beginning (Philosophy)
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| RelBib Classification: | AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism AE Psychology of religion AG Religious life; material religion |
| Further subjects: | B
Literary art
B Max Weber B World comprehension B World creation B World excess B Death B Psyche B Naturalism B Enchantment B World appetite |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | By the phrase "disenchantment of the world" (Entzauberung der Welt), Max Weber meant: i) an understanding of the world increasingly by reference to natural forces, physical laws, and mechanical principles than to magical and supernatural powers; and ii) a development within religion from magic to rationalized paths to salvation devoid of magic. However, restricting exploration on enchantment, disenchantment, and re-enchantment to scholarly and historically specific meanings would exclude a large terrain of ordinary, non-religious human experience. The semantic flexibility of the terms enables one to explore a spectrum of so-called substitutive sources of re-enchantment: psyche, death, love, art, history, nature, and so on. To designate secular sources of enchantment exclusively as re-enchantments would restrict them to being substitutes to the religious. Further, not all religious imagination is enchanting; the nature of enchantment varies across the ideational spectrum of religious world views, and this article briefly examines the internal gradations. Based on its exploratory expansiveness vis-à-vis such diverse phenomena, the article argues that every object, entity, and experience is a potential source of enchantment, that enchantment and disenchantment in a larger sense have to do with the perspective one might bring to an otherwise inert world, and that enchantment occurs at the conjunction of the subject and the object. |
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| ISSN: | 1743-1697 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Implicit religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1558/imre.21392 |