Religion as experience: Dialogue with John Dewey

Abstract

This article discusses John Dewey’s (1859–1952): Theory of valuation (1939), Art as experience (1934), A common faith (1934), The public and its problems (1927) for the socio-anthropological analysis of the religious. This pragmatist approach, attentive to intersubjectivity and experience, allows to work on aspirations and ideals, through giving place to emotions besides rationality in the valuation process. Further, the idea of public and pre-political, permits to pay attention to processes which are different from differentiation and where people contribute to the common good from their specific (minority) situation. In a pragmatist approach, believing comes in three modalities as ‘caring about,’ in the sense of giving value to forms of experiences and self-construction, respectively, to forms of self-transcendence, and to ways of connecting with the world (others and nature).