Abstract
One of the great difficulties about considering New Atheism is that many of the names associated with the movement have come from the scholarly ranks. This raises some difficult questions for how it is we, as academics and scholars, respond to them and treat their treatment of religion. In this reflective final chapter I look back over the previous contributions to the volume from the perspective of philosophy of social science—positioning myself halfway between our philosophical contributors and our social scientific contributors. Looking at what it is the New Atheists themselves might be trying to achieve, I investigate the ways in which we have responded to them and what this might say about us as a “scholarly group”. Ultimately the fact that some of the New Atheists come from the ranks and engage so willingly with the general public we must address the fundamental questions of what it is to do philosophy and what it is to do social science.
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Notes
- 1.
My paper came midway through a series of panels on the topic of ‘non-ordinary beings’ in the study of religion, and I effectively told the speakers before me that they were wrong.
- 2.
This is giving rise to a situation in which young academics, particularly those recently out of their PhDs and struggling to find employment in the current economic climate, are forced into announcing an affiliation with a university in order to gain admittance through publication. The side-effect of this is that the university is then able to gain credit for a piece of work that they did not contribute to. The young academic would have received as much support as if they had listed their affiliation as the Unseen University!
- 3.
Lacking an affiliation myself, I too fail at this norm.
- 4.
Barnes et al. point to the case of Robert Chambers (1802–1871) showing how specialization became a mark of authority and that scholars have been historically denounced for commenting on other specializations (1996, 156–162).
- 5.
Note, this pertains to ‘science’ as an activity and may be extraneous to the aims of university ‘Science’ departments.
- 6.
Following the above footnote, it is worth mentioning how Aristotle regarded ‘politics’ to be a ‘practical science’—i.e. philosophical and therefore constituting various norms. Such an understanding is still taken as the guiding principle behind departments of ‘Politics’ which are often found within Social Science departments in universities. This raises a separate point about the ideological impact of calling something ‘science’ which cannot be explored here.
- 7.
Indeed, one of the key questions of the philosophy of sport has been what makes a sport ‘sport’ (Meier 1981).
- 8.
This may be a too rigid view on what the university does. And I will certainly not claim that this is its primary, or even intended, function.
- 9.
In point of fact, I will add anecdotally, within Religious Studies any sort of public engagement, whether qualified or not, is often viewed as a drop in academic standards.
- 10.
The address turned out to be so important it was published in several journals: American Sociological Review, Sociale Welt and The British Journal of Sociology (all 2005). Social Problems, Social Forces, Critical Sociology, The American Sociologist and The British Journal of Sociology (all 2005–2006) then dedicated special issues to it.
- 11.
Developed by Schutz (1962, 246) .
- 12.
This point is drawn from Heidegger ’s distinction between the ready-to-handness and present-at-handness of tools (Heidegger 2010, 72–73).
- 13.
This observation led to much editorial debate as to which chapter should come first.
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Tuckett, J. (2017). Who Are We Are and What Are We Doing When It Comes to New Atheism?. In: Cotter, C., Quadrio, P., Tuckett, J. (eds) New Atheism: Critical Perspectives and Contemporary Debates. Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures, vol 21. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54964-4_12
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