The Phenomenological Method

Abstract

For a double reason the article of Professor R. Pettazzoni on I1 metodo comparativo, published in Numen VI, I is important and worth reading. Firstly it deals with a problem, near to the heart of all students of the history of religions of the phenomenology of religion, namely the question of the relation between pure historical research and the comparative method. These two manners of approach to historical facts frequently clash. Pettazzoni advocates their cooperation in a sense which he defines in the end of his article like this: termini sistematici, si tratta di superare le posizioni unilaterali della fenomenologia e dello storicismo integrandole reciprocamente, e cioe potenziando la fenomenologia religiosa col concetto storicistico di svolgimento e la storiografia storicistica con l'istanza fenomenologica del valore autonomo della religione, restando con cio risolta la fenomenologia nella storia, e insieme riconosciuto alla storia religiosa il carattere di scienza storica qualificata. Secondly the significance of this article consists in the unintentional way in which it evokes questions and remarks. Thereby it provokes discussion on this interesting issue. So I gladly take this occasion to state my own view on this question. For a Dutchman there exists a special reason for taking this step. Both the history of religions and the phenomenology of religion may claim in Hol'and to be an old and glorious tradition. In our country the principles and the methods of these two branches of science have repeatedly been scrutinized. Because the professors of the history of religions and of the phenomenology of religion are in Holland members of a faculty of theology, they have been forced to defend their science against the objections of theologians and philosophers. The discussion has helped them to amend the theoretical weakness of their procedure. Even lately I had to carry out a most interesting and for both partners enlightening paper-war with a member of my own faculty, a professor of the

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