Last Blog

“Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end.”
–Spock, “Star Trek IV: The Undiscovered Country”

Coleman’s articles raise the issue of competing systems of belief and education. How do you study or even discuss a group that has a completely different system of truth validation? Is there a balance between relativism and absolutism? Coleman is, in a way, trying to justify studying a group that most scholars view as extreme and anti-rational. He argues that perhaps the greatest reason surrounding the negative view of such research is the geographical closeness of the group. The idea that this group is, in a loose sense, a cultural part of the home “world” of the anthropologist makes it a problematic object of study.

My issue with Coleman’s ideas, and thus the topic I want to discuss, stems from this passage:

“Stewart (2001:327) asks how one can reveal the mystical secrets of ‘their’ religion if one neither believes in those secrets nor in the mystical power of any faith. I confess that I do not feel this query gets at the heart of the problem. Why should we assume in rather liberal Protestant fashion that our own forms of inner mystical experience somehow give us access to theirs? Such an argument falls into the trap of assuming that we are all potentially seekers in our different ways after the same ineffable Truth (McCutcheon 1997).” (Coleman, “Abominations of Anthropology”, 42)

More important to Coleman is another perspective explored by Stewart, concerning whether it is “alright” to be initiated into a religion as long as you never really believe in it or renounce the beliefs at the end. Now I understand that these two questions/perspectives are different ways of approaching a similar problem, but while the second question may seem more relevant to Coleman the first question seems more important from a philosophical standpoint. Firstly, although I am not familiar with Stewart, I loosely interpret his question as asking whether or not a scholar can fully understand and thus explain a religion if he/she is not religious. (I use religion instead of mysticism, but substituting mysticism for religion would produce an equally valid argument.) Implicit within this position is the idea that there is something special about religious belief, a “secret” way of knowing something. It therefore seems valid to question whether an individual who is not an initiate into one of these “secrets” can represent the religion he/she is studying. (This seems to be a twist on the insider/outsider approach that people have been talking about.) I disagree that this is a slippery slope into extreme Absolutism. Positing that there is a mode of thought that is unique to religion does not imply that all religions share a common goal and are seeking the same Truth. For example, analogously, just because all philosophers use a special mode of thought, speculative, analytical inquiry, this does not mean that all philosophers are seeking the same Truth.

Jumping now to Coleman’s preferred question of whether it is ethically and psychologically acceptable to take on the role of an initiate, to become an actor, it seems that this question is inherently burdened with the ideas from the first question. (Can merely acting the parts, going through the motions without belief, really explain the religion to the scholar?) In order to discuss this second question on its own I want to bring in two more quotes. First, Coleman quotes Hastrup just before presenting Stewart’s two questions: “In anthropology, the claim to knowledge remains based in a personal experience.” (Coleman, “Abominations of Anthropology”, p. 42) And secondly, he says this in relation to his and by association secular academia’s perspective and the perspective of the pastor of Word of Life: “However, we simply cannot assume that engagement in ‘conversation’ implies common understanding of the rules and meanings of what is going on.” (Coleman, “Abominations of Anthropology”, p. 45) Because Coleman’s subjects are a part of his society, not a geographically distinct other, it is difficult to adopt the role of the initiate. This is partly due to the fact that the group in question is familiar with the various academic disciplines and has created its own method of argumentation in dealing with them. So, if the anthropologist’s claim to knowledge is personal experience, then this study radically changes the nature of the anthropologist’s experience. The systems of thought used by both parties must be questioned. The example that comes to mind for me is the arguments about miracles given by al-Ghazali and David Hume. While there is no historical connection between the two they both used the same premises of skepticism to prove opposite positions, Ghazali for and Hume against miracles. I bring this up because it raises the question of the role of belief. Can belief shape logic? If the anthropologist is an actor, one without belief in the tenets of the subject he/she is studying, does this shape the conclusions he/she will reach? Implicitly this is asking whether there is a component to religion that can only be understood by the practitioner, and this component then adds wisdom to logic. (Belief can make a Ghazali instead of a Hume?) It would seem then that the anthropologist can never fully understand/explain the essential nature of the religious group he/she is studying. But perhaps he/she can come closer to understanding it if, like Stewart suggests, he/she is a practitioner of another religion? But can the academic actually explain the essence of belief and faith?

reflections

“Education itself is but habit, for are there not people who forget or lose their education and others who keep it?” –Rousseau, “Emile”

Not coming from a Religious Studies background I was not sure what to expect from this class. Already having an MA in philosophy, I was looking for a department that would allow me to continue pursuing my previous research. I was initially attracted to the Religion department at U of T because of its interdisciplinary nature, because this meant I could continue to study philosophy outside of a philosophy department. So in a way I was hoping that this class would introduce me to the world of religious studies. I have to admit my utter despair after the first few classes, especially after reading Masuzawa. What I expected I am not sure, I just knew that this was not it. I spent those weeks questioning whether I should have come to a religion department, and how this discussion of methodology bore any relevance to my own work. I made my philosophy Professor laugh when I went into her office and complained about the concept of methodology. Her response of yes philosophy has its own internal method of logic was the best catalyst for my attempt to theorize about the class and to find a place within the discipline. In fact, I shifted my focus from “how does this relate to my research” to “what is the underlying logic and structure of this concept”. By shifting my focus I discovered that this approach to the weekly readings allowed me to construct a theoretical framework for the concept of “religion”. It was a reminder that what you learn is not necessarily contingent upon the classes you take but upon the questions you ask of those classes. Therefore, I found it fitting to begin with the quote from Rousseau. My initial frustration with the class forced me to create a new “habit” of scholarly enquiry.

Having already gone through one MA program, I came into the class with a grounded academic voice from my first graduate experience. I entered the program with a specific goal in mind, not to “start over” and create a new voice, but to add to the voice I had already begun to develop. More than anything, this class re-affirmed my commitment to philosophy and studying Sufism and Ibn al-‘Arabi as philosophy. I will always view my study of religion as contingent upon and subordinate to my study of philosophy, but the weekly writing exercises helped me to see how I can meaningfully articulate and use this. I would have to say that the two non-philosophy graduate courses I have taken thus far, one in my previous program and this class, have been the most influential on my academic persona. Both have shaped my interest in ethics. This class forced me to be creative in my approach, and as a result I found new arguments to strengthen my academic goals.

I found the blog entries to be useful and frustrating. It was useful because it allowed me to reflect on opinions/interpretations in the readings and about the readings that differed greatly from mine. One of the brilliant advantages of an interdisciplinary program is that it fosters dialogue between scholars from different fields, and thus enriches the perspectives of the individual scholars involved. The challenge has been to not just react, but to listen, understand, adapt, and respond. By actively engaging in the activities of reaction and response with a group who had very different academic backgrounds I was challenged to engage the material and argue in a manner very different than I was used to. The only thing that I would change about the enterprise would be to switch the groups half way through the semester. I found that as the semester progressed I began to write more in anticipation of the response I expected from my group than merely reflecting on the readings. It would have been interesting to mix the response groups in the middle to see how this would have shifted the dynamic of the discussions.

The use of specific terms to guide the weekly discussion was a useful way to allow each individual to grapple with a broadly construed concept within the context of his/her own research area. While the readings were for the most part contextually specific within a certain religion or approach (history, anthropology, etc.) this did not restrict the bounds of enquiry. The emphasis in class on our own writings and interpretations helped to foster this. This pedagogical method shifts the focus from analyzing the arguments and approaches of the readings to analyzing the students’ own arguments and approaches. This forced each student to question his/her own position and approach. One of the dangers of this approach is that students will be left wandering hopelessly in the realm of relativism. The prevalence of postmodern and deconstructionist theory within the university offers as many dangers as benefits. Yet within this model the Instructor must act as a safety net for the wandering student. That is why once again I am reminded of Rousseau’s “Emile”. Rousseau says:

“I am teaching my pupil an art the requirement of which demands much time and trouble, an art which your scholars certainly do not possess; it is the art of being ignorant; for the knowledge of any one who only thinks he knows, what he really does know is a very small matter.” (Rousseau, “Emile”)

Rousseau goes on to explain that this art of being ignorant is teaching Emile the tools for learning the sciences. Instead of being taught what he needs to know Emile is being taught how to learn first. Parallel to this I would say that the structure of this class taught us the art of being ignorant. It dismantled all the “knowledge” we brought, and made us investigate the broken architecture. At the end it did not give us new knowledge per se but tools that we can use to consciously re-build our knowledge.