1. The Project
Assignment: For first session read the opening chapters of Breaking the Spell.
You may want to think about the following:
(1) In the opening chapters of Breaking the Spell, Dennett defends a naturalistic investigation of religion against those who presume that such an investigation is impossible, irreverent or harmful and claims that such an investigation is not intended as an attack on religion--indeed he even represents himself as hoping to engage theists in this investigation (see especially p. 39). Yet critics of the book have almost universally depicted Dennett as attacking religion. Is this criticism fair? Is religion somehow sustained, as Dennett suggests, by a "taboo" against naturalistic investigation, and, if so, how is this taboo enforced?
(2) Take a look at Dennett's working definition of religion on pp. 9-12 and consider the way this narrows the focus of his investigation (in contrast, say, with James' definition).
(3) It seems that religion has been studied from historical, anthropological, psychological and sociological points of view for more than a century. So what is Dennett's proposed natural science of religion supposed to do that hasn't been done before these other naturaliist approaches? One thing Dennett mentions is anticipating the future course of religion and possibly averting its toxic effects (pp. 34-39). But what makes Dennett so sure that scientific study of religion would help us predict it's future direction -- it is certainly not the case that all naturalistic / scientific study is engaged in predicting the future, consider for example history or evolutionary biology both of which are dependent on contingent events. Here I think Dennett isn't so much interested in forming general hypotheses about religion or in making predictions about its future direction as he is in answering questions about why we tend to be attracted toward religions (see his discussion of why we love music and why we love sweets) and whether this attraction is still beneficial to humanity.
You may want to think about the following:
(1) In the opening chapters of Breaking the Spell, Dennett defends a naturalistic investigation of religion against those who presume that such an investigation is impossible, irreverent or harmful and claims that such an investigation is not intended as an attack on religion--indeed he even represents himself as hoping to engage theists in this investigation (see especially p. 39). Yet critics of the book have almost universally depicted Dennett as attacking religion. Is this criticism fair? Is religion somehow sustained, as Dennett suggests, by a "taboo" against naturalistic investigation, and, if so, how is this taboo enforced?
(2) Take a look at Dennett's working definition of religion on pp. 9-12 and consider the way this narrows the focus of his investigation (in contrast, say, with James' definition).
(3) It seems that religion has been studied from historical, anthropological, psychological and sociological points of view for more than a century. So what is Dennett's proposed natural science of religion supposed to do that hasn't been done before these other naturaliist approaches? One thing Dennett mentions is anticipating the future course of religion and possibly averting its toxic effects (pp. 34-39). But what makes Dennett so sure that scientific study of religion would help us predict it's future direction -- it is certainly not the case that all naturalistic / scientific study is engaged in predicting the future, consider for example history or evolutionary biology both of which are dependent on contingent events. Here I think Dennett isn't so much interested in forming general hypotheses about religion or in making predictions about its future direction as he is in answering questions about why we tend to be attracted toward religions (see his discussion of why we love music and why we love sweets) and whether this attraction is still beneficial to humanity.
posted by Richard at
3:07 PM
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