The pragmatics of defining religion

the long version

"This volume promotes a pragmatic, anti-essentialist and anti-hegemonic approach to the problem of the definition of religion. It argues that definitions of religion are context-bound strategies for pursuing a variety of purposes, extra-academic as well as academic. Religions being immensely varied, complex and multi-functional phenomena, they need to be studied by several academic disciplines from many different perspectives. It is, therefore, legitimate and useful that many definitions of religions are developed. The volume has contributions from scholars in Philosophy of Religion, the Comparative Study of Religions, Anthropology of Religion, Sociology of Religion and Psychology of Religion."--Jacket.