Event

ABSTRACT - This talk situates the exploration and discussion of religious emotions in the context of recent findings on emotions in general. Philosophy and the cognitive sciences (Robert C. Solomon,  Martha Nussbaum, Antonio Damasio, Jenefer Robinson, and others) have challenged the idea that emotions  are harmful  to reason, detrimental to judgment and to moral conduct, an idea widely held for centuries in the Western philosophical tradition (particularly by Platonists, the Stoics, and Descartes), and also often promoted by Christian theologians. Although this talk will not  deal with contemporary philosophers and cognitive scientists in detail, it will show how they have reversed the traditional negative view of emotion, and how they have made the issue of emotions  culturally relevant at present. Religious emotion as such has been, on the whole, neglected in their work, and  it is time to connect their theories to those of three authors whose works have been crucial in the field of the Comparative Study of Religions since the early decades of the twentieth century: Sigmund Freud, William James and Rudolph Otto. This talk argues that interest in the emotions plays a prominent part in their research, which is articulated  according to different disciplinary methodologies and protocols. The reading of the works of Freud, Otto and James intends to address the following points: [1] What is the personal significance and cultural role of religious emotions? [2] Are religious emotions cognitive? [3] Is there an original “religious feeling”? [4] (How)/Do religious emotions differ from secular emotions? Is there a specificity of religious emotions?