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LEGITIMACY AND THE FIELD OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION
Author(s) -
Jordan Peter N.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
zygon®
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.222
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1467-9744
pISSN - 0591-2385
DOI - 10.1111/zygo.12624
Subject(s) - legitimacy , object (grammar) , field (mathematics) , rationality , epistemology , sociology , political science , law , philosophy , computer science , politics , mathematics , artificial intelligence , pure mathematics
Prompted by the concerns about legitimacy that Josh Reeves expresses in his book Against Methodology in Science and Religion: Recent Debates on Rationality and Theology , this article considers how the field of science and religion, and the disciplines and scholars that comprise it, should think about the pursuit of legitimacy today. It begins by examining four features of any conferral of legitimacy on an object. It then looks more closely at distance and its effects on judgments of legitimacy. It first notes how longer distances can enable a wide range of factors other than the internal features or inherent merits of the object to influence judgments of its legitimacy. It then explores the factors that persons who have significant expertise in or experience with the object may consider when judging its legitimacy. It closes by posing three questions that anyone designing a strategy to increase the perceived legitimacy of an object might ask.