Agency and Reason
Tradition - A Critical Primer - Steven Engler
Steven Engler [+]
Mount Royal University
Steven Engler is professor of Religious Studies at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Canada. He teaches a variety of courses and research popular Catholicism, Umbanda, Kardecist Spiritism and related spirit-incorporation religions in Brazil, as well as theories and methodology in the study of religions.
Description
This chapter will argue that tradition is best thought of in terms of a family of oppositions (ancient/modern, received/invented, imitative/creative, static/dynamic, unitary/plural, universal/particular, continuous/discontinuous etc.) that do their ideological work through alignment with various normative distinctions (true/false, authentic/inauthentic, orthodox/heterodox etc.). The goal is to further undermine essentialist views of the concept. (Various examples will trace relations between these ideas of the sociological categories of authority drawn from Weber: priest vs. prophet.)