عنوان

Text and Context in Religious Studies and Yogācāra Cognitive Theory:

شماره

LA122784

زبان متن نوشتاري يا گفتاري و مانند آن

انگلیسی

عنوان اصلي

Text and Context in Religious Studies and Yogācāra Cognitive Theory:

نام عام مواد

[Article]

ساير اطلاعات عنواني

Discovering Theory "in the Wild"

نام نخستين پديدآور

William S. Waldron

محل نشرو پخش و غیره

Leiden

نام ناشر، پخش کننده و غيره

Brill

متن يادداشت

This paper discusses the creative dynamic between abstraction, reification, and reflexivity in the study of religion in general and textual analysis and Indian Buddhist thought in particular. I define "texts" narrowly, as written materials signifying human speech, something doubly removed from sensory experience, inviting abstraction and reification, while enabling reflexive analysis. Such analyses accumulate in literate civilizations - alienating yet enabling us. For example, the critical methods of Biblical analysis ironically undermined its own ahistorical assumptions, e.g., the idea of an Urtext independent of historical context. Philosophy of science displays similar developments: abstract theories enable analyses of data, which are, however, only meaningful within specific contexts of interpretation. Indian Buddhist philosophy similarly critiques ordinary assumptions about identity, subserved by our innate tendencies to abstract and reify experience, while recognizing its analytic insights. Its own accumulating traditions led Buddhist thinkers to critique multiple theories of cognition, concluding that, like an Urtext, the notion of an independent Self is an abstract social and especially linguistic construct that, nevertheless, operates at the deepest levels of our common cognitive processes - an insight that depended on textual traditions to develop. This paper discusses the creative dynamic between abstraction, reification, and reflexivity in the study of religion in general and textual analysis and Indian Buddhist thought in particular. I define "texts" narrowly, as written materials signifying human speech, something doubly removed from sensory experience, inviting abstraction and reification, while enabling reflexive analysis. Such analyses accumulate in literate civilizations - alienating yet enabling us. For example, the critical methods of Biblical analysis ironically undermined its own ahistorical assumptions, e.g., the idea of an Urtext independent of historical context. Philosophy of science displays similar developments: abstract theories enable analyses of data, which are, however, only meaningful within specific contexts of interpretation. Indian Buddhist philosophy similarly critiques ordinary assumptions about identity, subserved by our innate tendencies to abstract and reify experience, while recognizing its analytic insights. Its own accumulating traditions led Buddhist thinkers to critique multiple theories of cognition, concluding that, like an Urtext, the notion of an independent Self is an abstract social and especially linguistic construct that, nevertheless, operates at the deepest levels of our common cognitive processes - an insight that depended on textual traditions to develop.

تاريخ نشر

2014

توصيف ظاهري

208-220

عنوان

Numen

شماره جلد

61/2-3

شماره استاندارد بين المللي پياييندها

1568-5276

اصطلاح موضوعی

Buddhist theories of mind

اصطلاح موضوعی

reification of identity

اصطلاح موضوعی

study of religion

اصطلاح موضوعی

textual analysis

اصطلاح موضوعی

Yogācāra Buddhism

مستند نام اشخاص تاييد نشده

William S. Waldron

شماره بازیابی

10.1163/15685276-12341316

نام الکترونيکي

فرمت انتشار

p

نوع ماده

[Article]

کد کاربرگه

275578

سطح دسترسي

a

تكميل شده

Y