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Chapter 6: A Practice of Understanding
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129 A Practice of Understanding In what, then, does the phenomenology of religion consist? What does it mean to call religion a phenomenon? Where does the phenomenologist of religion look to find “it”? What kinds of movements propel the phenomenologist back and forth across the surface of historical events, between the chaos of the given and conceptual forms? By what means does a phenomenologist mediate between the historical , scientific, and interpretive approaches to the study of religion, on the one hand, and theology on the other? As suggested in Chapter 5, it was van der Leeuw’s frustration with the chasm he perceived between historical and theological approaches to the study of religion that impelled him to distinguish a study of religion from the description of historical fact or attempts to posit truth as a mediating activity between the two, and correlatively, to formulate a phenomenology of religion as a means for engaging critically in that mediating activity. It is fair to say that van der Leeuw’s phenomenological method and his concept of religion as a phenomenon pulled each other into existence—the one serving to articulate the other. In his own words, a phenomenon is “what appears” and phenomenology begins when a person discusses what appears (REM 671). Following his guide, this chapter enters his phenomenology through a discussion of the phenomenon. chapter 6 In his conception of a phenomenon, as discussed below, the hinge of his argument for a braided methodological approach, van der Leeuw offers his response to the problematic framed by his philosophical forebears, namely, how to develop a scientific study of religion that both affirms the particularity of phenomena that appear as “religion” and allows for a critical understanding of those phenomena . He does so by defining a phenomenon as an appearance of meaning where that meaning appears to someone in an open-ended, mutually generative dialectic of reason and experience. His phenomenological method, in turn, takes shape as a practice of understanding in which scholars cultivate the ability to move between rational reflections and the appearances of meaning they experience . They do so in ways that enhance their ability to recognize and interpret such appearances as “religion.” Thus, van der Leeuw seeks to articulate an approach to studying religion that nourishes the historical study of facts and the theological quest for truth without forcing an opposition between the two nor collapsing one into the other. Along the way, the significance of van der Leeuw’s phenomenology of religion for attempts to appreciate dance as a medium of religious experience and expression begins to appear: by defining and mobilizing (the relation between) reason and experience as he does, van der Leeuw’s phenomenology of religion opens the possibility for approaches to studying religion that do not demand an oppositional stand in relation to “theology” and do not, correlatively, rely exclusively on writing as a model of and for knowledge. As later chapters suggest, van der Leeuw’s model of and for knowing is a dialectical interplay of writing and dancing. the shape of a phenomenon While the phrase “what appears” might seem to reference a concrete object apart from a subject, van der Leeuw maintains that 130 Between Dancing and Writing [54.225.35.224] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 03:20 GMT) “appearance” refers equally to what appears and to the person to whom it appears; the phenomenon, therefore, is neither pure object, nor the object, that is to say, the actual reality, whose essential being is merely concealed by the “appearing” of the appearance; with this a specific metaphysics deals.The term “phenomenon ,” further, does not imply something purely subjective, not a “life” of the subject; so far as is at all possible, a definite branch of psychology is concerned with this. The “phenomenon” as such, therefore, is an object related to a subject, and a subject related to an object . . . [with no modification implied] . . . The phenomenon . . . is not produced by the subject, and still less substantiated or demonstrated by it; its entire essence is given in its “appearance,” and its appearance to “someone.”(REM 671) A phenomenon is a relation: it is “an object related to a subject, and a subject related to an object”—something-appearing-to-someone. Both parties are necessary for the appearance to occur, both are pulled into shape by the encounter, and neither exclusively determines the content of the appearing. The phenomenon or form that appears conceals the “actual reality” of what is given because what...