| Abstract
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Schilbrack presents the data and methods of disciplinary philosophy as contributing positively to the academic study of religion and gives his understanding of religion and of its study based on this contribution. I suggest we go further—the methods of disciplinary philosophy should provide a centralizing paradigm around which the various contributory disciplines of the study of religion might be better and more sustainably organized. Schilbrack adopts an approach that focuses on practice and embodiment rather than doctrine and belief. Again, I recommend going even further, still avoiding eliminative behaviorism but adopting a “philosophical ethology,” and seeking to refine the “superempirical realities” of Schilbrack’s definition of religion with reference to behaviors that produce and surround certain elements of material culture. This, I believe, would advance Schilbrack’s theoretical understanding of both religion and the philosophy of religion, taking it to an even greater level of generality and utility. Schilbrack presents the data and methods of disciplinary philosophy as contributing positively to the academic study of religion and gives his understanding of religion and of its study based on this contribution. I suggest we go further—the methods of disciplinary philosophy should provide a centralizing paradigm around which the various contributory disciplines of the study of religion might be better and more sustainably organized. Schilbrack adopts an approach that focuses on practice and embodiment rather than doctrine and belief. Again, I recommend going even further, still avoiding eliminative behaviorism but adopting a “philosophical ethology,” and seeking to refine the “superempirical realities” of Schilbrack’s definition of religion with reference to behaviors that produce and surround certain elements of material culture. This, I believe, would advance Schilbrack’s theoretical understanding of both religion and the philosophy of religion, taking it to an even greater level of generality and utility.
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