Ritual and Thought: Spirituality and Method in Philosophy of Religion

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The author is to be commended for this original essay. The author demonstrates great familiarity with the works of Blondel and Dumery, working with the original French texts. Yet, the author does not remain at the level of exposition of these thinkers, but uses their insights to advance his more theoretical aims. The article is a contribution both because it highlights the importance of a lesser-known  philosophical tradition (French spiritualism) and some of its main figures, and because it mines these sources to help with contemporary issues in the philosophy of religion and even work in anthropology.

The writing is overall clean, though there are quite a few small errors (e.g., extra comma at line 125, missing quotation mark on 482, etc). There are also three blank footnotes: 9, 31, and 32 (perhaps removed for review process?). I am not sure the opening lines work very well, precisely because it concedes that interiority and concrete religiosity are somehow in an inherent tension, which is the position the author is arguing against. Just a clarification of who (inheritors of a certain strain of Enlightenment philosophy) thinks this is a problem would suffice.

The work on Blondel is excellent, although there could be more engagement with recent work on Blondel that touches on very similar themes (particularly the recent book by Koerpel). Dumery is used to good effect, but he is clearly subservient in the paper to Blondel, although the introduction and abstract seem to place them as equals. Those should be altered to accurately reflect what is done in the paper. I also wonder whether the debate between Dumery and Bouillard on the interpretation of Blondel might be mentioned, at least in a footnote, simply to note that Dumery’s philosophy of religion is not the only version of interpretation of Blondel.

On page 12, the author should clarify whether or not there is any direct influence of Blondel et al on Renfrew (I assume not). If so, that needs to be demonstrated. If not, the connection needs to be clarified somewhat (not a genetic link, but B. providing philosophical rigor and support to R.’s anthropological work).

I wonder about footnote 21: would Blondel agree that there is such thing as “religion in general”? Is not the attention to the difference of concrete, literal practice make it such that “religion” is always only used analogously? Not that there cannot be a general framework for analyzing religions in Blondel’s system, but it would require also giving due attention to the very real differences between religions and how those differences shape human action and thought. Just something for the author to consider.

The essay feels like it ends rather abruptly. I believe a separate concluding section should be inserted. There should also be a bit more of a recapitulation of the main argument and how, precisely, Blondel adds to this discussion.  

Author Response

Many thanks for your review. I have taken heed of your suggestions and sought to make a stronger connection between the cognitive archaeological research and the tradition of French spiritualism.

 

I also reframed the intro to help better explain the intellectual context.

 

I've re-worked vast portions of the paper and have added quite a bit of new material. The ending will require some minor editing (after page 27), so any suggestions in that regard will be very helpful.

Reviewer 2 Report

1. The article gives a long summary of the philosophy of religion of two 20th-century French philosophers - Henry Duméry and Maurice Blondel - and then tries to present their thought (especially Blondel's) as a potential answer or 'contribution' to issues raised by the cognitive archaeology of Colin Renfrew and others.

It does not succeed in doing so, but fails both as an attempt in the history of philosophy and as an attempt to prove the significance of two antiquated thinkers to the contemporary study of religion.

2. As history of philosophy or intellectual history, it falls short because it gives no account of the debates and questions that were central to the period in which Blondel and Duméry were working. The reader gets no access to the development of philosophical reflection on religion in this period and the place of these two French thinkers in that development. In fact, even their own major concerns remain unclear. There are occasional references to Kant and Spinoza but no coherent account of the central questions and attempts to tackle these questions in the philosophy of religion of the first half of the 20th century. Consequently, Blondel and Duméry come across as quaint figures who may have been important in their time but certainly do not seem to be so today. 

3. It is unconvincing as an attempt to show the continuing importance of Blondel's thought. The summary and fragmentary citing of claims from Renfrew's cognitive archaeology of religion does not suffice to explain how we are facing some central problem in the study of human culture. In fact, the questions and hypotheses of British cognitive archaeology become as blurry here as those of the French philosophy of religion. 

The author locates the source of Blondel's 'methodology' in this French philosopher's particular situation: his devout Catholicism and his intent to nevertheless live up to the requirements of a 'professional philosopher operating under the French state...[who] bound himself to respect the demands of the prevailing philosophical establishment'. The reader is then asked to believe that Blondel's 'methodological' solution to his personal problem situation can address questions about the early developments of human culture during the Neolithic Revolution. This is possible but a much more convincing analysis of both the French philosophy of religion and cognitive archaeology of religion would be needed to demonstrate that this is the case. In the current manuscript, Blondel comes across as an antiquated thinker who presents the questions faced by the Roman-Catholicism (and Christianity more generally) of his time as a universal human predicament in the study of religion. It is perhaps understandable that an early 20th-century European philosopher would do so, but not that a 21st-century scholar continues along these lines.

3. The author shows no familiarity with recent debates in the study of religion as to its central concepts and its relation to Christian theology. From the first sentence ('Religion has a dual problem'), it is as though it is obvious which phenomenon is being investigated and talked about. Yet, several authors have pointed out how problematic the concept of religion is and shown how the belief that religion is a cultural universal is a pre-theoretical assumption (inherited from centuries of Christian thinking). Instead of discussing these challenges, the author seems ignorant of potential problems in his own conceptual framework. He writes about 'the objective facts of religious culture', 'the clarification of religious practice', and 'the systemization of religious symbolism' as though these are obviously phenomena central to human existence. This theoretical naïveté is especially apparent in claims such as 'the contribution of these masters of sympathy in the French spiritualist tradition, may offer more profound insight and more clear description as to how religion has historically functioned in the cultural development of humankind, here regarding the mysterious and persistent presence of ritual objects and religious rites' (2-3). Again, it is understandable that Christian philosophers of religion would write in this way in the first half of the 20th century, but 21st-century scholars have to address questions such as: what is the evidence for the 'mysterious' presence of religion in all human cultures, let alone among prehistoric human beings? How does one recognise or test for the presence of this phenomenon? How could provincial philosophical reflections on Roman-Catholic religion (built on Christian theological notions such as the 'pneumatic' and 'immanence') suddenly serve as profound insights into 'religion' as a universally human phenomenon?

4. The article's use of the English language needs reworking. There are some typo's and grammatically problematic sentences and the translations often sound clunky. In fact, some of the problems in the presentation of Blondel's thought may have to do with rather clumsy English translations of the French text. 

Author Response

Thank you for your review. I agree with some of your criticisms, I've especially tried to improve the intellectual history angle. 

 

I've tried to make my argument more convincing by at least providing more indications as to the connections.

 

I've rewritten large portions of the article and reworking the internal logic and also the general framing of my argument. I think this new framing should help provide the context for my engagement within the tradition in philosophy of religion in which I'm working, which is clearly not that of your own. 

 

I will need to edit some of the ending, especially the last section. Any constructive criticism in that regard would be helpful. 

 

Thanks for your input.

Reviewer 3 Report

Please see the attached report. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thanks for your input. I have taken your suggestion to heart and rewritten a great portion of the article. 

Hopefully the argument is more clear, though sometimes clarity can betray the meaning. 

Reviewer 4 Report

This is an excellent paper that offers a fascinating discussion of how the philosophy of religion might be reconfigured through considering the tradition of French spiritualism and the work of Henry Duméry and Maurice Blondel. I did not know the work of either until I read this, and this paper has had the pleasing effect of making me want to read the work of both.

This is a well-written paper that discusses complex ideas with clarity and a sense of liveliness. It is well-structured and advances its argument well.

I have no changes to suggest or questions to ask. It offers an important set of reflections with the power to transform much that passes for the current parameters of the discipline. I am anxious for it to be in print so that I can refer to it in my own work! 

Author Response

Many thanks for your comments.

 

I've rewritten a great deal of the paper. Hopefully you will like the improvements.

 

All my best wishes.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The author has done a lot to improve the article and it can now serve as an introduction to the thought of French Spiritualism and especially Maurice Blondel on religion. The part on their contemporary relevance and ability to theorize ritual (and make sense of archeological findings) still looks unconvincing to me, but I do not think this should prevent the article from being published. 

Reviewer 3 Report

This is an interesting paper, based on a comprehensive knowledge of the literature. It has benefited from revision in that it is easier to follow, and includes some illuminating new sections. It is, however, very long – it has expanded from 16 pages to 41 – and clarity is not necessarily achieved by adding significantly to the length. Although the individual sections are clearer, the over-arching picture is not always clear to me. I now think the argument is that the findings of archaeology and anthropology show human engagement with some kind of spiritual reality, and that philosophy, specifically the French spiritualist tradition, can help us to understand the nature of this reality. So what is suggested is a kind of middle way between the idea that there are only phenomena and the claim that there are only noumena; the phenomena associated with religion suggest the existence of noumena, and these phenomena include the evidence of archaeology and anthropology together with the methodology for understanding religion which is supplied by philosophy. If this is correct, it would be good to have a clearer statement of it at some point.

There are a number of minor errors, but these could be addressed at the editing stage.