Evolution, Politics and the Spell of Language: A Critical Analysis of Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell

Author: Vaněk, David¹

Source: Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, Volume 20, Number 1, 2008 , pp. 45-53(9)

Publisher: BRILL

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Abstract:

The author attempts to analyze Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell as a discourse, challenging its clean-cut division into descriptive and evaluative parts, proposed by Dennett himself. Rather than focusing on the details of Dennett's contribution to the theory of religion, he identifies several apparently inconspicuous concepts distributed throughout the text which form a web of relations functioning as a narration hidden below its surface. What thus transpires is a story of tension between description and evaluation, science and politics, materialism and spirituality as well as other concepts whose uncontrolled dialectics seems to have deprived Daniel Dennett of his otherwise indisputable mastery over his texts.

Keywords: EVOLUTION OF RELIGION; DENNETT, DANIEL; "BRIGHTS" MOVEMENT; "BREAKING THE SPELL"; COGNITIVE SCIENCE OF RELIGION

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1163/157006808X266443

Affiliations: 1: Department of Religious Studies, Masaryk University Brno, Czech Republic

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