Book Review: Ali Shariati Expanding the Sociological Canon

Abstract

what Rüpke means by the term “critical” in his subtitle. He does not explain how he understands the term, but it is clear that Rüpke holds that the modernist sense of the term “religion,”widely taken for granted today, distorts our understanding of behavior in the past and obscures how present societies became the way they are. One should therefore reflect on the concept, identify its limits, and think alternatively. If “genealogy” names a method of tracing something’s current state back through a series of formative stages in a way that motivates a novel evaluative judgment, then this book is not a genealogy of religion, but it is genealogy-adjacent. If deconstruction names a method of destabilizing a system of concepts so that one comes to see that the meaning previously taken as secured by a transcendental signified is actually the product of the differential relations within the system itself, then this book is not a deconstruction of “religion,” but it is also deconstruction–adjacent. Given Rüpke’s critique of the term, “religion” names cultural repertoires that have existed in many cultures throughout history, and “a religion” names a social structure built from with those elements. Given this critical approach, “religion” here names something that can exist in a society, even when its members do not have a concept for it. This is a realist approach to religion in history. It follows that “critical” research on religion can lead to a debunking project, that is, a critical nonrealism, or it can lead, as it does here, to a constructive revisioning of the concept, that is, a critical realism.