Imagining Science

Ancient Religion, Modern Science, and How We Talk About History

Abstract

Disagreement about the trans-cultural applicability of the concept of religion has been a feature of the academic study of religion for decades. In a series of recent essays, Kevin Schilbrack has powerfully reframed these discussions as a debate between realist and antirealist philosophical orientations. Aligning himself with Critical Realism, Schilbrack argues that religion is a transcultural and transhistorical reality and that those who deny this are antirealists. As my own work is among his targets, this article engages Schilbrack's critique. The first part of the article challenges some of Schilbrack's readings of Before Religion. The second part queries Schilbrack's use of examples from the physical sciences as analogies for the relationship between concepts and the real things they are said to designate. The third part models an alternative use of examples from the natural sciences to think about historiography, concluding that the realist/antirealist dichotomy is not a useful tool. The physics of the last 150 years has shown that our most fundamental ideas about the universe – what we think the "real" character of the world might be – can change radically in short intervals of time. Historians should take heed and approach their own engagement with the traces of the past with due humility.