Psychology, philosophy, theology, epistemology: some reflections

This paper considers the implication of the researcher's own world-view for his research; the relationship between theory and empiri. General questions concerning the formation of knowledge, its epistemological propositions and social functions, so much dis-cussed in the humanities and social sciences, have had little impact upon the history of religion, where the theoretical debate seems to remain more specific, more bound to the discipline. In the polarization between "positivists" vindicating the notion that theories are abstracted from "reality" and "relativists" maintaining that "reality" is selected and formed according to theories, most historians of religion belong in practice to the first camp, and many belong so exclusively that they do not even acknowledge the problem itself. The historian of religion is not concerned with metaphysics, but with faith in its human and cultural manifestations. The researcher' own atheistic or religious commitment has no bearing on the result of the investigation, nota bene provided that he adheres to strictly empirical principles. Is this credo not only a necessary ideal, but also a true description of research? Is an uncomplicated belief in its possible realisation a strength or a hindrance in the pursuit of a relative objectivity that might be attainable outside the predictions of natural sciences? Does the historian of religion have no metaphysical involvement in the material under investigation? Is it without interest whether he is a materialist or a devout religious person, whether he is a believer or non-believer in the physical reality of the gods and spirits he describes, and in the actual efficacy of the sacrifices and other rituals in which he partakes? Statements about human and social reality are mostly true or false from a certain point of view. Objectivity in a deeper sense must be multi-dimensional and complex. Both the object beheld and the beholder must be taken into consideration. Too strong a belief in objectivity, actual or pretended, might produce subjectivity of either a naive or a hypocritical kind