The Transformation of Blame: "Religious Thought" and the Genealogy of Scientific Explanation

This essay discusses Donald Wiebe’s account of the relationship between "religious thought" and the mode of thought that he thinks typical of objective science and rational theology. First I present what I take to be Wiebe’s position. Then, drawing on René Girard’s fundamental anthropology...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Thomson, Cameron M. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: Equinox Publ. 2009
In: Religious studies and theology
Year: 2009, Volume: 28, Issue: 2, Pages: 207-240
Further subjects:B Religious Thought
B Mimesis
B Scientific Explanation
B Blame
B Social Order
B collective violence
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)

MARC

LEADER 00000caa a22000002 4500
001 183729108X
003 DE-627
005 20230224075154.0
007 cr uuu---uuuuu
008 230222s2009 xx |||||o 00| ||eng c
024 7 |a 10.1558/rsth.v28i2.207  |2 doi 
035 |a (DE-627)183729108X 
035 |a (DE-599)KXP183729108X 
040 |a DE-627  |b ger  |c DE-627  |e rda 
041 |a eng 
084 |a 0  |2 ssgn 
100 1 |a Thomson, Cameron M.  |e VerfasserIn  |4 aut 
245 1 4 |a The Transformation of Blame  |b "Religious Thought" and the Genealogy of Scientific Explanation 
264 1 |c 2009 
336 |a Text  |b txt  |2 rdacontent 
337 |a Computermedien  |b c  |2 rdamedia 
338 |a Online-Ressource  |b cr  |2 rdacarrier 
520 |a This essay discusses Donald Wiebe’s account of the relationship between "religious thought" and the mode of thought that he thinks typical of objective science and rational theology. First I present what I take to be Wiebe’s position. Then, drawing on René Girard’s fundamental anthropology and Michael Tomasello’s cultural-psychological work on joint attention, I offer a critique and articulate an alternative approach. I argue that the dichotomy between ostensibly objective modern scientific thought, on the one hand, and religious thought, on the other, is not an internal structural one, but concerns the radically differing value for social order accruing to otherwise commensurate modes of intersubjective attention to objects in a shared environment. I argue that the class of procedures aiming at relatively disinterested, nonagentic explanation is genetically related to the class of relatively parochial, affect-laden acts of blaming, a class that includes ex post facto (mythological) rationalizations of those proto-human reactions that engendered archaic ritual practices and systems of interdiction in the first place. The transition from religious thought to science, I conclude, is not a dichotomy in "kinds" of thought, as Wiebe argues, but arises with the historical emergence of a novel human potential for empathy and the concomitant erosion of the individual’s susceptibility, in the context of collective crises, to persuasion framed in terms of blame. 
601 |a Transformation 
601 |a Genealogie 
650 4 |a Blame 
650 4 |a collective violence 
650 4 |a Mimesis 
650 4 |a Religious Thought 
650 4 |a Scientific Explanation 
650 4 |a Social Order 
773 0 8 |i Enthalten in  |t Religious studies and theology  |d London : Equinox Publ., 2006  |g 28(2009), 2, Seite 207-240  |h Online-Ressource  |w (DE-627)543310442  |w (DE-600)2385398-0  |w (DE-576)271361964  |x 1747-5414  |7 nnns 
773 1 8 |g volume:28  |g year:2009  |g number:2  |g pages:207-240 
856 4 0 |u https://doi.org/10.1558/rsth.v28i2.207  |x Resolving-System  |z lizenzpflichtig  |3 Volltext 
856 4 0 |u https://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/1410  |x Verlag  |z lizenzpflichtig  |3 Volltext 
936 u w |d 28  |j 2009  |e 2  |h 207-240 
951 |a AR 
ELC |a 1 
ITA |a 1  |t 1 
LOK |0 000 xxxxxcx a22 zn 4500 
LOK |0 001 4275528913 
LOK |0 003 DE-627 
LOK |0 004 183729108X 
LOK |0 005 20230222110105 
LOK |0 008 230222||||||||||||||||ger||||||| 
LOK |0 040   |a DE-Tue135  |c DE-627  |d DE-Tue135 
LOK |0 092   |o n 
LOK |0 852   |a DE-Tue135 
LOK |0 852 1  |9 00 
LOK |0 935   |a ixzs  |a ixzo  |a rwrk 
ORI |a SA-MARC-ixtheoa001.raw 
REL |a 1 
STA 0 0 |a Mimesis 
STB 0 0 |a Mimésis,Mimèsis,Mimèsis 
STC 0 0 |a Mimesis 
STD 0 0 |a Mimesis 
STE 0 0 |a 模仿自然,摹拟,模仿 
STF 0 0 |a 模仿自然,摹擬,模仿 
STG 0 0 |a Mimese 
STH 0 0 |a Мимесис 
STI 0 0 |a Μίμηση 
SUB |a REL 
SYE 0 0 |a Nachahmung,Imitatio naturae