DEN MAGISKE ILLUSION? En kognitiv tilgang til magiske ritualer

Forfattere

  • Jesper Sørensen

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7146/ta.v0i41.107471

Resumé

The concept of magic is one of the most

contested concepts in anthropology. It has

been criticised as an illusion created by early

anthropology’s primitivist understanding of

other – notably non-European – cultures.

This has led to a general agreement to

abandon the term, if not in praxis then

theoretically. The author questions whether

the concept should be abandoned and instead

he proposes a reformulation based on the

realisation that magic is a broad analytical

category about which one cannot produce

theories. Rather, theories must address the

phenomena observed and categorised as

magic. The author advocates a cognitive

approach to magic and magical ritual based

on the theory of “conceptual blending”

proposed by linguist Gilles Fauconnier and

literary Mark Turner. The theory of conceptual

blending presents a new possibility

to approach the explicitly metaphorical and

metonymic content in magical practices and

spells. Thus, magic is not based on a special

type of causality, but rather in the exploitation

of ordinary cognitive procedures

in special pragmatic circumstances, namely

ritual, in order to achieve a specific result. At

the same time, the author aims to show how

symbolic interpretations are de-emphasised

in magical rituals in order to enhance more

basic processes of meaning construction,

which gives magic a special relation to

institutionalised religion.

 

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Publiceret

2000-06-01

Citation/Eksport

Sørensen, J. (2000). DEN MAGISKE ILLUSION? En kognitiv tilgang til magiske ritualer. Tidsskriftet Antropologi, (41). https://doi.org/10.7146/ta.v0i41.107471

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