Religious Diversity: What or How? Towards a Praxeology of Early Modern Religious Ordering*

Klymenko, Iryna (2024) Religious Diversity: What or How? Towards a Praxeology of Early Modern Religious Ordering*. HUNGARIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW: NEW SERIES OF ACTA HISTORICA ACADEMIAE SCIENTIARIUM HUNGARICAE, 13 (2). pp. 287-305. ISSN 2063-8647 (print); 2063-9961 (online)

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Abstract

Scholars of the pre-modern history of religion have increasingly sought to arrive at a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon of religious diversity. Building on these advancements, this paper argues that our comprehension of this phenomenon is intricately linked to our presuppositions regarding religious groups and their boundaries. By challenging the conventional notion of groups as closed, authentic, and consistently coherent collectives, it advocates for a praxeological approach. Drawing on sociological theories and microhistorical studies, with a particular focus on early modern sources related to Jewish communities, it proposes a transition from inquiries about “what” the groups are to an examination of “how” they have been constructed in both temporal and spatial dimensions. Thus, by viewing religious groups and their ordering as dynamic and process-related, this approach aims to deepen our understanding of religious diversity in the early modern era as an analytical and empirical category.

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