Understanding sacred objects: towards and anthroologucal theory of religious meaning

Journal article

The anthropological theory of religious meaning proposed in this paper is based on a multimodal approach to human communication. According to this approach, meaning originates not in a set of propositions about the world but in modes of experience of and engagement with it. These modes of experience include different forms of communication in which their performative component trumps their propositional content, modes of communication that are normally defined as ‘symbolic languages' when religious scholars try to translate them into explicit verbal statements, that is, into a set of propositions. Of all these modes of communication or symbolic languages, in this article the focus is on sacred objects, that is, objects that evoke their absent signifieds by being simultaneously objects of thought and instruments of thought.

Authors: Salazar, C

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Anthropological Society of Oxford
• Journal: Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford Online
• Volume: 11
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 53-68
• Publication date: 2019-01-01
• DOI: 10.5287/ora-gpvab8nmj
• ISSN: 2040-1876
• Language: English
• Keywords: meaning; religious anthropology; religion; fetishes; cognition; sacred objects; symbolism; JASO