Religionsantropologi: spørgsmålet om tro og viden

Resumé

The discussion focuses upon a debate in anthropology over the use of the labels "belief" and "knowledge" in the translation of indigenous (religious) propositions about the cosmos. It is suggested that the words we choose in describing indigenous meaning have political implications about which we today cannot be naïve. Besides the issue of "the politics of semantics" which the use of these constructs raise, they can also imply judgments that are specific to Modernist Western concerns. without Awareness of the particularity of such valuations, about for instance judgments of Truth and the Real, their use can lead to distorted translations of idigenous meaning. It is suggested that Nelson Goodman's work, Ways of Worldmaking, is an excellent antidote to the fallacy of understanding the contrast between indigenous and (scientific) Western thought as that of belief and knowledge. The Piaroas in the Amazon, and especially the healing songs of their shamans, are used as a case study in the discussion.