Konst, religion och insikt om verkligheten

Abstract

This article is founded on a lecture given at a symposium 2011, organised by the Theological faculty in Lund in honour of the former Swedish archbishop KG Hammar, who left his position as professor of the faculty this year. The theme of the symposium was “Religion as a form of art” and the article deals with the common epistemological problems of art, ethics and religion. In the first part is argued that empiricism is the philosophy that nowadays dominates our attempts to understand the world we live in. Art, ethics and religion are given an emotive interpretation according to empiricist epistemology. These activities do not give us knowledge about a reality outside ourselves. In the following parts of the article the empiricist tradition is explained and criticized – especially the concept of experience fundamental to this philosophy. A broader concept of experience is then introduced and defended against common criticism. Statements based on other experiences than those recognised in the empiricist tradition, that are internally coherent and coherent with empirical science are called insights. In the concluding part of the article a cognitivistic interpretation of aesthetic and religious experiences is introduced and different criteria for estimating insights in these areas are discussed. The main work of Hans Ruin – a famous aesthetic scholar in Lund – is used to develop the similarities between one kind of religious experience and the experiences behind many kinds of poetry. Similarities between visual art and religion are also discussed. Both religion and art contain insights that can be discussed and evaluated in a rational way and give us knowledge of important aspects of our reality.