Designer project of phenomenological understanding of religion: F. Max Mueller’s comparativism

Abstract

This article provides grounds for the idea that the comparativist project of F. Max Mueller had laid the foundations of phenomenology of religion. Max Mueller formalised the general principles of the new science of religion, having taken away the straightforward apologetic content from the comparative principle and defending the idea of existence of religious studies as an independent discipline, the subject of which is religion itself, the task of a religious scholar being to see religion through the eyes of a believer. In all religions, Max Mueller saw a certain hidden unity; it is the presence of this unity that had been making possible the translation from the language of one culture into the language of another. Max Mueller follows Schleiermacher asserting the existence of the primordial sense of the Infi nite that underlies any religion. According to Mueller, religious comparativism should serve the purpose of updating Christianity; the latter should not be the dominant religion but a new religion expressing all religions of mankind simultaneously. It is the comparativism that came to be the methodological ground for phenomenology of religion. The article draws the conclusion that the comparativist project of F. Max Mueller contained the main features of the future phenomenology of religion, namely empathy, the idea of deep unity of religious traditions, the practice of religious comparative studies, hidden theological background.

Keywords

• Friedrich Max Mueller
• Friedrich Schleiermacher
• phenomenology of religion
• comparative religious studies
• empathy
• intention