Kierkegaard on the concept of authority

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

The changing dynamics of religious authority on Pakistani religious television

This paper analyses the production, ownership and control of Pakistani religious talk shows, which have emerged as a popular genre of religious programming, subsequent to the liberalisation of Pakistani media in 2002. Much scholarship has implicated the nexus between Islam and televisual media in enabling the fragmentation of religious authority, by altering ‘lay’ engagements with Islam and thereby eliciting wider participation in religious discourse. In contrast, this paper focuses on the changing terms of asserting religious authority in the newly liberalised media context. Based on an analysis of the innovative formats and modes of editorial control characterising contemporary religious shows, I posit the significance of religious talk shows in both altering the nature of scholarly participation in religious public debate, and subjecting featured scholars to non-scholarly interests and agendas. I argue that the latter two insights into the nature of religious authority on television are only accessible from a production-based perspective, which is crucial for evaluating the wider implications of broadcast media for religious authority.     

Islamic emoticons and religious authority: emerging practices,shifting paradigms

This article considers the use of emoticons on transnational, English-language Islamic website forums as a case study to examine the shifts in Sunni religious authority, which have accelerated and deepened in the era of computation and new media. It shows the ways in which ordinary Muslims on conservative web forums invoke, deploy, and respond to different kinds of authority, from jurists to site administrators. It focuses first on particular websites’ endorsement of certain emoticons as Islamic (a smiley face with a hijab, e.g.), and then turns to forum users’ debates about emoticon usage. These debates range from questioning the acceptability of figural emoticons to the appropriateness of ‘secular’ emoticons on self-identified Islamic websites. It finds that while users often cite or request fatawa on emoticon usage when disputing with others, they are equally likely to post what they consider relevant hadith, appeal to common sense, or appeal to site administrators. This ground-up approach to engaging with the issue of emoticons gives nuance to what some scholars have termed the “crisis of authority” in Sunni Islam, and suggests that ordinary Muslims find authority in a diverse, sometimes contentious spectrum of locations. Far from being irrelevant to scholarship on contemporary Islam, emoticons are an important locus for understanding how pious Muslims have negotiated interactions in online spaces.     

The psychobiographer's authority: questions of interpretive scope and logic

Two charges are often raised against psychobiographers' authority (as well as popularized analytic case formulations): reductionism and causal overreach. The first pertains to interpretations that rely exclusively on analytic concepts but ignore the essential contributions made by neighboring disciplines, such as history, to the elucidation of lives lived elsewhere or in the past. The second charge is sometimes stimulated by exaggerated interpretive claims, but often reflects the critic's misunderstanding of the logical structure of genetic explanations. Three case studies illustrate reductionism as well as safeguards against it. They also support a critical discussion of the alleged logical defect.     

The logic of scientific and religious principles

Summary In every domain, the philosopher finds some principle which is unfalsifiable in so far as all experience is interpreted in accordance with it. This principle is tautologous or analytic-within-its domain in that it defines fundamental terms with which it characterizes experiences: Newton’s Laws define “mass” and “the equality of times”; the Principle of the Rectilinear Propagation of LIght defines “light”; the Principle of Evolution defines “adaptation” and “natural selection”; and the Principle of the Conservation of Energy defines “a closed system.” Moreover, each principle is employed as a methodological rule or a tacit imperative to the investigator to interpret experience or to draw inferences in accordance with it. Nevertheless, each principle has empirical content: not only by virtue of its place within its respective domain but also because there are sufficient rules of correspondence which make the statement-form empirically relevant; not only because the principle itself is taken to be true but also because empirical inferences are drawn in accordance with it. To construe these principles as mere counterfactuals would be clearly incorrect. Counterfactuals, as Rescher would characterize them, are “belief-contravening suppositions” because certain beliefs are excluded if one is to be consistent. Although this is certainly true of these principles, the range of beliefs contravened is far larger than those beliefs excluded in mere laws of nature. For, to give up these principles would be to give up explaining the entire domain of experience to which they are applicable.     

Female religious leadership in Switzerland: norms,power, and money

Women’s access to positions of leadership in religions is a highly contested issue in Western societies, both inside religions themselves and in societal discussions of religion. Reliable data on actual female leadership are, however, scarce, especially in European countries and regarding minority religions. This article describes and explains statistically the normative openness of congregations to female leadership as well as the actual existence, position, and financial remuneration of female leaders across the whole range of religious traditions in Switzerland. The study is based on data from the representative National Congregations Study of 2008/2009. Our results show that, despite considerable normative openness, female spiritual and administrative leadership remains scarce in most religious traditions. The highest percentage of female spiritual leaders can be found in the milieu of alternative spirituality, followed by the Reformed congregations. A generally high percentage of female leadership can be found on administrative boards. It is only leadership positions in certain Christian traditions (Reformed, Catholic, Evangelical-classical) that are normally remunerated for women; many other traditions do not have female leadership or, as in the case of the milieu of alternative spirituality, such leadership positions are not remunerated.     

Truth,authority and epistemological individualism in new age thought

Several problems are involved in studying the New Age, ranging from mapping its enormous diversity of beliefs and practices to locating it with reference to the conditions of modernity and postmodernity. With the latter issue in mind, the article is an analysis of understandings of truth and authority in the New Age. Against the assumption of some theorists, one of the central aims of the discussion is to demonstrate that, epistemologically speaking, the New Age is essentially a manifestation of modernity rather than postmodernity. Having established that, it is also shown that there are certain postmodern elements within the New Age network, as well as a superficial embracing of postmodernity and an emerging postmodern critique, all of which produce increasingly apparent tensions and confusion. The final section provides a critique of some of the principal problem areas.     

Primitive religious thought and the evolution of religion

In an article in this journal about the ideas of Levy-Brühl, Don Wiebe reviewed ideas from anthropology to argue that there is indeed a primitive mentality, and that mythopoeic religious thought is an instance of this mentality. Wiebe ends by declaring religious thought generally to be mythopoeic. The anthropological literature does support well Wiebe's thesis that primitive thought is primitive, in particular those studies which use Piaget's theory of cognitive development as a guide for interpreting primitive and other thought styles. But Piaget's theory can be extended to interpret other stages of culture and thought. This aids in recognizing that religious thought develops in stages also, from primitive folktales to archaic complex myths, and then to classical rationalized theologies and most recently to symbolic theologies.     

Courage and Resistance: Spiritual formation and mentoring girls for religious leadership

In spite of the vast growth in literature over the past 10 years related to the gender-specific aspects of girls' development, very little has actually been written concerning their spirituality and spiritual development. This paper reviews available sources on girls' spiritual development and compares and contrasts the extant literature with the results of interviews with over 32 young women as part of a 'Girls and Religious Leadership' Project. How do girls develop spirituality? What are their spiritual questions? How do the relational concerns of girls connect with their spirituality? And how do the answers to these questions compare to the same as related to boys? Further, what sort of mentoring models relate most directly to the support of girls and their spiritual development. We are at a time in history when women are emerging as religious leaders. Though further work needs to be done, this paper makes initial suggestions about how knowledge of girls' spirituality and mentoring can contribute to the formation of future religious leaders.     

Between individualisation and tradition: transforming religious authority on German and Polish Christian online discussion forums

The aim of this paper is to connect the debates on individualisation and mediatisation of religion and transformations of religious authority online on theoretical and empirical basis. The classical and contemporary concepts of individualisation of religion, rooted in the secularisation debate, will be connected with Campbell’s [2007. “Who’s Got the Power? Religious Authority and the Internet.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 12 (3): 1043–1062] concept of four layers of religious authority online. The empirical material consists of a joint analysis of German Christian and Polish Catholic Internet forums. In a transnational comparison, the findings show similar tendencies of individualisation and emerging communities of choice, as well as a lasting significance of textual religious authorities, although different levels of authority are negotiated and emphasised to a varying extent. However, in both cases critique of the Church and religion usually emerges offline, and is then expressed online. While the forums do not have a subversive potential, they facilitate adopting a more independent, informed, and reflexive approach to religion.     

Political thought in early confucianism

The political philosophy of early Confucianism mainly focuses on the “shi ± (scholar).” It is built on ideas such as that of “establishing a ruler in consideration of the people,” “taking yi 义 (righteousness) as li 利 (benefit)” and “following the Dao but not the ruler,” which demonstrate the foundations of political legitimacy, justice as a political principle, and principles of a scholar to become an official. Although the political thought of early Confucianism has its historical limitations, such as the lack of both political equality and the universal recognition of rights, there is both a demand for and possibility of democratic politics in the philosophy. Thus, how to extend awareness of scholars to awareness of people and how to transform a focus on virtue into a focus on rights become the crucial theoretical questions that Confucianism faces in the contemporary world.     

道家与道教的“理身理国”思想——先秦至唐的历史考察

本文考察了先秦至唐道家和道教“理(治)身理(治)国”思想的发展。道家及道教各派都曾围绕着身理(治)身与理(治)国的关系进行过不同层次的探讨。从“天人合一”原则出发,道家和道教各派不仅将身与国比拟为结构和功能相似的有机系统,而且对于理(治)身与理(治)国的终极基础和实践原则作了深入地剖析。随着语境的变迁,特别是在唐代,原道家语义被转换或开掘出新的内涵,故“理身治国”的实质内涵也在变化。“理身理国”观体现了道家和道教各派对个体生命及其生存状态的深度人文关切。