The Western Epistemic Tradition and the Scientific Study of Religion

Reviews

In an era in which even academics cannot tell the difference between truth and power, the burden of argument and claims to identity rights, Wiebe's staunch physicalism is an important prophylaxis against contemporary absurdities and scientific obscurity. Based on an exposition of the Western epistemic tradition, Wiebe persuasively demonstrates why a genuinely scientific study of religion is essential to the modern academy and integral to the endeavour of the university.

Professor Anders Klostergaard Petersen, University of Aarhus

Donald Wiebe argues that the academic study of religions should be restructured as a scientific enterprise, accepting only naturalistic explanations and pursuing knowledge for its own sake. In this incisive book of intellectual history, Wiebe shows that the scientific study of religion has been made possible by a long intellectual tradition - "the Western epistemic tradition" - that draws not only from the European Enlightenment, the Scientific Revolution, and the Renaissance, but also from the proto-science of Aristotle and the Ionian pre-Socratics, and ultimately from the evolutionary development of the cognitive capacities of the human mind. This book is invaluable for anyone who wants to take seriously this neglected option for the contemporary university.

Professor Kevin Schilbrack, Appalachian State University

Something is rotten in the state of Religious Studies. The discipline's damaged foundations have been neglected for far too long, and ghosts and spooky dogmas haunt its crumbling academic halls and bookish endeavours. As Hamlet bravely uncovered the institutional web of corruption, omert , and decay in his kingdom, so Donald Wiebe engages with the history of the study of religion from Antiquity to the present to denounce how fully scientific approaches to religion have been, and are still, constantly belittled or crushed by theological, political, and spiritual agendas. Wiebe's book is the ultimate honest review of the field, and its unparalleled critical acumen and challenging theses make it a must read for seasoned religious studies scholars, experienced historians of religions, and students unaware of the field's problematic history.

Leonardo Ambasciano, author of An Unnatural History of Religions