The article presents an analysis of the research program of the famous British scholar of religion Ninian Smart. Various opinions about his main research principles, proposed by Russian and foreign scholars of religion, are mentioned. The article analyzes the model of seven dimensions of religion and the concept of worldviews developed by the researcher, which have been quite often subjected to reasonable criticism. In addition, the importance of the key principles of syncretistic realism and informed empathy for the researcher's methodology is explained. The relevance of the article is due to the need to rethink the scientific heritage of Ninian Smart in the context of the contemporary science of religion. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the fact that it attempts to fit the model of the seven dimensions of religion and the concept of worldviews into the broader context of Smart's global research program. This program can be named “comparative study of religions”, since the researcher himself focused on comparing religions with other worldviews using the model of seven dimensions. In the course of the research, the following conclusions were made: 1) Smart did not consider himself a phenomenologist of religion, he preferred to call himself a researcher of worldviews; 2) the researcher expected the emergence of a global pluralistic worldview, which would make it possible to overcome the contradiction between the study of religion and other significant worldviews; 3) he wanted to demonstrate the existence of a global space of significant worldviews that can be analyzed using the “dimensions” model; 4) Smart wanted to develop uniform criteria for comparing worldviews, recognizing the sufficient arbitrariness of the categories he chose. The results of the study are important for understanding the research position of Ninian Smart and his approach to the methodology of the science of religion.
Keywords: Ninian Smart, comparative religious studies, phenomenology of religion, worldviews, dimensions of religion, syncretistic realism, informed empathy
DOI: 10.22250/20728662_2022_2_61
About the author
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Oleg V. Smolenkov – Postgraduate student at the Department of Philosophy of Religion and Religious Studies, Institute of Philosophy, |