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In Jung’s Ethics, Dan Merkur, a psychoanalyst in Toronto and the author of many books on the Inuit, psychoanalytic theory, mysticism, and drug-induced religious experience, here writes for the first time on Jungian psychology. Merkur is not abandoning Freud for Jung. A Freudian he remains. But he seeks to contrast Jung positively to Freud. Merkur draws scores of contrasts. Some of them are already known, some not. But even when the contrasts are known, Merkur illuminates them. He is especially concerned with the difference between Freud and Jung on the relationship of psychology to religion. Where Freud seeks to replace religion by psychology, Jung seeks to make psychology itself religious. Whether Jung in fact succeeds in tying psychology so tightly to religion, as Merkur contends, is considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Friedrich Max Müller was both a theorist of religion and a theorist of myth. He was atypical not merely in theorizing about both, but in pitting religion against myth. He celebrated religion and abhorred myth. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The ramifications of postmodernism for theology have been discussed voluminously. I want to consider the ramifications of postmodernism for the social scientific study of religion, which above all means for theories of religion. Those ramifications are wholly negative: postmodernism opposes theories, and does so because it opposes generalizations. Objections to generalizations and thereby to theories in the social sciences long antedate the rise of postmodernism, but earlier objections are on modernist grounds. Postmodernism is oblivious to these criticisms and instead assumes that criticism begins with postmodernism itself. Where at least some modernist criticisms are not easily answerable, all postmodern criticisms are easily answerable, for all of them rest on confusions about theorizing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is commonly assumed that Jung's view of myth, like his view of everything else, is best understood vis-à-vis Freud's. I argue that Jung in fact positions himself much more broadly, not merely against other psychologists of myth but more fundamentally against non-psychologists altogether. Undeniably, Jung pits his theory against Freud's, but only after pitting both his theory and Freud's against those theories that assume the subject matter of myth to be the external world rather than the human mind and that assume the function of myth to be either the explanation or the description of the external world rather than the expression of the human mind. The theorists whom Jung challenges are called 'nature mythologists', for whom myth is either a literal explanation or a symbolic description of the natural world. Which element of the natural world myth is about varies from nature mythologist to nature mythologist. The two leading nature mythologists, both of whom Jung cites, were Edward Tylor and James Frazer. Their theories epitomize the nineteenth-century approach to myth. For them, myth is the 'primitive' counterpart to science, which is entirely modern. For them, myth and science are incompatible, science is true and myth false, and myth must therefore go when science comes. Jung's rejection of the external world as the referent of myth and of explanation or description of that world as the function of myth epitomizes the twentieth-century response to nineteenth-century theories. For not merely Jung and Freud but also twentieth-century theorists generally, myth is anything but the 'primitive' counterpart to modern science. Consequently, myth and science are not rivals, so that myth need not go when science comes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a response to the article "Retrieving Phenomenology of Religion as a Method for Religious Studies," by Jason N. Blum, originally published in volume 80, issue 4 of the journal, challenging the author's conclusions. The author reviews Blum's views regarding the validity of the phenomenology of religion and further discusses the relationship among the concepts of interpretation, explanation, and experience in religious philosophy.

This article responds to a commentary by sociologist Steven Kepnes, on the study of religion. According to the author, in his provocative "Perspectives" essay Kepnes makes various claims. The author wants to identify five of them and then focus on the last two, on which Kepnes himself concentrates. First, Kepnes argues that religious studies suffers from a chronic methodological "crisis." The author agrees, though many other fields, including sociology and psychology, face the same crisis. Indeed, for this reason Kepnes essay applies as fully to sociologists and psychologists of religion as to those in "religious studies," for which the author will therefore substitute the broader phrase "study of religion." Second, Kepnes argues that the crisis in the study of religion has worsened. The author disagrees. Third, Kepnes argues that the crisis stems from the absence in the study of religion of an indigenous method. Scholars thereby feel forced to choose between a method imported from the sciences and one imported from the humanities, the author agrees. Fourth, Kepnes argues or, better, assumes that "functional," "reductionistic," and "explanation" name the method taken from the sciences and that "substantive," "nonreductionistic," and "understanding" name the method taken from the humanities. The author disagrees. Fifth and most important, Kepnes argues that scholars of religion need not choose between "explanation" and "understanding" because the methods are compatible. In fact, only together do they provide a complete analysis, which Kepnes, employing the terminology as well as the argument of Paul Ricoeur, calls an "interpretation." The author disagrees not with the accuracy of Kepnes' use of Ricoeur but with the accuracy of Ricoeur's and therefore Kepnes' characterization of explanation.