Comparison: Critiques and Challenges

This chapter addresses theoretical critiques that have been raised and challenges with which comparison is confronted. It first demonstrates that comparison has been used in service of different and contradictory agendas—affirmative or critical of religion—and is therefore not tied to any specific ideological framework. It discusses the most common objections: that comparative studies decontextualize and essentialize religious phenomena. It then engages with postcolonialist and postmodernist critiques of the comparative method and their insistence on acknowledging difference. Turning to the opposite side of the academic spectrum, the chapter reviews the relation of naturalistic approaches (such as the cognitive science of religion) to comparison and their focus on universals and sameness. Acknowledging the critiques and challenges and recognizing their limitations sets the stage for the reflections about comparative methodology in Chapter 3.

Introduction

The introduction explains the objectives of the present book and summarizes its major arguments. Comparison has been conducted in religious studies since the early days of the discipline, and scholars have often reflected upon its problems and merits. But very few bridged the gap between actual comparative work and theoretical reflection. Against the backdrop of recent substantial criticism of the comparative method, this book holds that comparison is indispensable for the study of religion and that the comparative method can be described and analyzed more comprehensively than in past scholarship. This introduction outlines the problem and the book’s argument and provides short summaries of the subsequent chapters.

Comparison in Practice: A Methodological Framework

This chapter seeks to connect the insights gained in Chapter 2 with comparative practice, outlining a methodological framework that identifies two sets of elements of the comparative enterprise. First it describes the general configuration of a comparative study, distinguishing modes, scales, and scopes of comparison. Each of these categories comprises several options, out of which the researcher selects those that are most appropriate for the study. Second, the chapter breaks down the comparative process into five operations: selection, description and analysis, juxtaposition, redescription, and rectification/theory formation. This methodological framework provides a vocabulary that enables us to talk about the elements of the comparative method. A comparativist may use it as a template or foil against which he or she devises a comparative study. It provides tools for questioning, reconsidering, and defending decisions made in the study. Second, the framework may be used to analyze and evaluate existing comparative studies.

Comparison in Theory: A Scholar-Centered Approach

Incorporating the insights gained from discussing the postmodernist and postcolonialist critiques as well as the naturalistic approaches in Chapter 2, this chapter explores the epistemology of comparison. It takes a close look at the origin and genesis of the comparands and the tertium comparationis as well as their mutual relationship, arguing that they have been connected to each other in the mind of the scholar and/or in the academic discourse long before the actual comparative study begins. It explores how items are being delineated and distinguished from their context by identifying both empirical and theoretical properties in view of them becoming comparands. It also reflects upon the role of the tertium comparationis, the point in view of which items are compared. Finally, the chapter proposes a scholar-centered approach to comparative methodology that takes the situatedness of the scholar seriously but also acknowledges her or his agency in conducting a comparative study.

The Comparative Method in the Study of Religion

This chapter breaks down the common phrase “comparative method in the study of religion” and seeks to clarify the scholarly contexts in which comparativists of religion operate. It argues that religious studies ought to be recognized as an academic discipline—and as one that is grounded in comparison. Speaking of disciplinarity helps to acknowledge the scholarly discourses and goals of other comparative disciplines and to engage in productive interdisciplinary conversations. The chapter also suggests three different ways in which comparison is used in religious studies and argues that it makes sense to speak of “the comparative method.” Finally, it proposes two primary goals of comparison in religious studies and argues that with its particular configuration of goals, comparative method, and disciplinarity, religious studies makes a unique contribution to scholarship.

Discourse Comparison: An Approach and a Case Study

This chapter introduces a comparative approach that the author calls discourse comparison. The approach focuses on the discursive context of the comparands and highlights the plurality of voices, tensions, and conflicts, or simply the heterogeneity of opinions that are expressed in the sources about the studied phenomenon. To exemplify this approach the chapter presents, as a case study, the author’s earlier work on ascetic discourses in early Brahmanical and early Christian texts. At the same time, it analyzes this study along the lines of the methodological framework proposed in Chapter 3 in order to demonstrate the ways in which the terminology of the framework can be applied to a concrete comparative study. A concluding section recapitulates the argument of the book and summarizes what the author regards as the contribution that it makes to the methodological discourse in the study of religion.