Being, meaning, and truth
Mircea Eliade’s current concept of religion
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24220/2447-6803v48a2023e8620Keywords:
Phenomenology of religion, Irreducibility of the Sacred, Mircea Eliade, Theory of religionAbstract
The paper investigates the concept of religion according to Mircea Eliade’s thought. Concerning this task, an updating for the author’s theory of religion is required. The proposed conceptualization considers elementary assumptions of Eliade’s research, i.e., the ambiguity of reductionism, the anteriority of homo religiosus, and the irreducibility of the sacred. The research is based on a tripod constituted by the being, the meaning, and the truth as organic elements of the concept of religion. The being represents the individual experience with hierophany; the meaning, its subjective articulation and original narratives mediating the perception of the sacred; and the truth, homo religiosus existential solution regarding its participation in the world. The paper will unfold Eliade’s theory of religion towards a comprehensive horizon. A dialogical, inclusive, and plural concept of religion will de proposed. The phenomenon of the sacred, prior to the idea of religion, horizontalizes and materializes religious meanings. Therefore, religion may be understood, according to Eliade, as a conceptualization sensitized by the preservation of the sacred in its own scale of knowledge.
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