Weibe/Western Epistemic Tradition, 1. Setting the Boundaries

The assumption that a scientifically respectable study of ‘religion’ as a field of teaching and research depends on defining ‘religion’ is unhelpful since, as an abstract English noun, the term has no empirical reference range. Limiting ‘Religious Studies’ to the study of modes of human thought and behaviour described as ‘religious,’ by virtue of their association with beliefs in superhuman agent, will ground the field in an intersubjectively observable subject matter.