*Post-viva Reflections 1

So, I am still placed in (w.e.i.r.d.) social situations where I am asked about my thesis. Some have mentioned their surprise that I'm still willing to talk about it; it is a theoretical piece which I suppose makes a bit of a difference. Perhaps, because it is somewhat theoretical and I believe/accept there is potential to develop it into various areas that I am still engaged with the work.

At any rate, I figured I would quickly begin with the first question that came up in the viva: summarize the dissertation in one or two sentences. Over the last year or so, I've come up with several ways to talk about the thesis but have not quite pinned down which does the best work in getting the ideas across. Here are four:

1) The primary thesis argues that the social sciences and philosophy can be mutually complementary; the sub-thesis argues that 'beliefs' can be interpreted as the units of embodiment and cultural history. By engaging with the social sciences (cultural anthropology, social psychology, and some sociology), emergent characteristics can be placed in dialogue with epistemology in thinking about 'belief' and contribute to methodology through the themes of 'crisis' and 'conversion' which the thesis further examines in three case studies.  

2) In a way, the thesis is an attempt to combine dual-process theories of cognition with Bourdieu's habitus and the paradigm of embodiment in navigating the tensions between structure and agency. By getting away from 'religious beliefs' and discussing 'beliefs' in general (without distinguishing it from knowledge or rationality), the thesis seeks to provide a view of belief that can be appropriated within religious contexts and proposes that 'belief' can be investigated through the themes of crisis and conversion. Not only does the thesis develop interdisciplinary bridges but proposes the position that beliefs are the units of embodiment and cultural history.

3) Belief is a troublesome concept for the study of religion; issues with the history of Christianity saturating the semantic content for the analytical tool/critical category for the study of religion have been well discussed and continues to raise concerns with language, translation, and expression - especially when conducting studies of non-Christian religious traditions. The task is then to go beyond language in thinking about belief; the thesis further develops the notion of habitus and embodiment through an epistemological distinction between belief and acceptance and the theory of cognitive dissonance to argue, not only that philosophy and the social sciences are commensurable but that, beliefs are the units of embodiment and cultural history.

4) Taking Ludwig Wittgenstein's critique of Frazer's Golden Bough, Rodney Needham's call for the abandonment of belief as a tool for analysis, Talal Asad critique of power and historical discursive practises, Malcolm Ruel's analysis of belief's saturated Christian content, and contemporary proposals/approaches to belief in the study of religion, I argue that the paradigm of embodiment (with at least four ways to talk about it) and epistemology can assist in clarifying the murky waters of belief and that the theory of cognitive dissonance (over the course of its history and development) illuminates the issue of inconsistency noted by both philosophers and anthropologists. Given this background, I argue that the themes of crisis and conversion are useful, but not the only, areas of methodology and that the inquiry into belief leads into areas of future research for morality, values, and ethics. 

Long sentences.