EBOOK Believing and Acting:The Pragmatic Turn in Comparative Religion and Ethics

How should religion and ethics be studied if we want to understand what people        believe and why they act the way they do? In the 1980s and '90s postmodernist        worries about led to debates that turned on power, truth, and relativism. Since the        turn of the century scholars impressed by 'cognitive science' have introduced        concepts drawn from evolutionary biology, neurosciences, and linguistics in the        attempt to provide 'naturalist' accounts of religion. Deploying concepts        andarguments that have their roots in the pragmatism of C. S. Peirce, Believing and        Acting argues that both approaches are misguided and largely unhelpful in answering        the questions that matter: What did those people believe then? How does it relate to        what these people want to do now? What is our evidencefor our interpretations?        Pragmatic inquiry into these questions recommends an approach that questions grand        theories, advocates a critical pluralism about religion and ethics that defies        disciplinary boundaries in the pursuit of the truth. Rationality, on a pragmatic        approach, is about solving particular problems in medias res, thus there is no hard        and fast line to be drawn between inquiry and advocacy; both are essential to        negotiating day to day life. The upshot is an approach to religionand ethics in        which inquiry looks much like the art history of Michael Baxandall and advocacy like        the art criticism of Arthur Danto.