THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF RELIGION OF THE NEW TYPE OF JACQUES WAARDENBURGH IN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE DUTCH TRADITION OF THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF RELIGION

Abstract

The author examines in this article the religious phenomenology of Jacques Waardenburgh, a Dutchman known for his studies of the phenomenology of religion of the new type. After a brief examination of various tendencies in the study of religious phenomenology and their classification, the author turns his attention to the phenomenology of religion of the new type as exemplified by the classical proponents of the Dutch school (Pierre Daniel Chantepie de la Saussayee, William Kristensen and Gerardus van der Leeuw). By comparing concepts stated as answers to specific questions, Waardenburgh appears to employ critical acumen in his formulation of the material left by his predecessors in the field. But the elements of religious phenomenology which relate to an existential conception of data and which were accepted by the classical school are excluded by Waardenburgh. Waardenburgh, on the other hand, attempts to substitute a philosophical hermeneutic with one drawn from the applied sciences, in as much, and this is the author’s opinion, that the phenomenology of religion of the new type refuses to mediate between the disciplines which study empirical material and the philosophical conception of religion. In addition, Waardenburgh remarks that the constant task of the phenomenology of religion is to mediate among the disciplines which employ the empirical method and those cognitive spiritual needs which face the student of religious phenomena. Among these disciplines, sociology replaces history to take first place, followed by cultural anthropology. Thus, the cognitive factor become more pragmatic

Keywords

• Phenomenology of religion
• Applied hermeneutics
• Religious meanings and signifi cance
• Religious meanings and significance