Religion as Social Reality. A Take on the Emic–Etic Debate in Light of John Searle’s Philosophy of Society

In this article I argue that the shift from a private to a public–social understanding of religion raises new ontological and epistemological questions for the scientific study of religion\s. These questions are deeply related to three central features of the emic– etic debate, namely the problems of intentionality, objectivity, and comparison. Focusing on these interrelated issues, I discuss the potential of John Searle’s philoso- phy of society for the scientific study of religion\s. Considering the role of intentional- ity at the social level, I present Searle’s concept of “social ontology” and discuss its epistemological implications. To clarify Searle’s position regarding the objectivity of the social sciences, I propose a heuristic model contrasting different stances within the scientific study of religion\s. Finally, I explore some problematic aspects of Searle’s views for a comparative study of religion\s, and sketch a solution within his frame- work. I shall argue that a distinction between the epistemological and ontological dimensions of religious affairs would help clarify the issues at stake in the past and future of the emic–etic debate.

The Social Imaginary of Culture/Civilization in the Arabic Literary Tradition

Charles Taylor’s contribution to social imaginaries offers an interpretive framework for better understanding modernity as secularity. One of its main aspects is conceiving of human society in linear, homogenous time (secular time). Looking into the Arabic intellectual tradition, I will argue in my paper that Taylor’s framework can help us understand major social and intellectual transformations. The Ottoman and Arabic modernization process during the 19th century has often been understood by focusing on certain core concepts. One of these is tamaddun, usually translated as “civilization.” I will be mostly talking about the works of two “pioneers” of Arab modernity (which is traditionally referred to as an-nahḍa, the so-called Arab Renaissance): the Syrian Fransīs Marrāsh and the Egyptian Rifāʿa aṭ-Ṭahṭāwī. First I will focus on Marrāsh’s didactic novel “The Forest of Truth” (1865), as it offers a complex view of tamaddun, which has sometimes been construed as merely a social and political reform program. The category of "social imaginary,” however, is useful in grasping the wider semantic scope of this concept, which is reading it as a signifier for human history conceived of in secular time, as Taylor defines it. This conceptualization of human history functioning within the immanent frame can also be observed in the introduction to “The Extraction of Pure Gold in the Description of Paris” (1834), a systematic account of a travel experience in France that was written by the other “pioneer,” aṭ-Ṭahṭāwī. Finally, in translating tamaddun as “the modern social imaginary of civilization/culture,” the talk aims to consider this imaginary as a major factor in the emergence of the “secular age.” Furthermore, it suggests the importance of studying (quasi-) literary texts, such as historiographical, geographical, and self-narratives in the Arabic literary tradition, in order to further elaborate continuities and ruptures in social imaginaries.

Dramas of Recognition: Philosophy as Literary History

Offers a critique of the concept of recognition (Honneth, Fraser), arguing that, from a literary-historical perspective, it connstitutes a step back behing modernism toward the agenda of Realism.