Abstract
Explanations on the origins of life, spiritual possession and death after life cannot be explained from a naturalistic, positivistic methodological view point simply because scientists have not ventured deep enough to develop measuring instruments for these phenomena. This inadequacy in positivism has led to the exclusion of theoretical explanations of crime and desistance as a result of spirituality. The anomaly can be discharged, had it not been that a bias has developed against spiritual phenomena which is substantiated in this article. In a liberal world, emphasising freedom of conscience and speech, this is a contradiction worthy of enquiry. Our existential world has for ages been affected by behaviour, claimed to be influenced by the supernatural. The question is whether criminologists can ignore phenomena such as spiritual possession claimed by especially Africans, aboriginal peoples and some religions? Many perpetrators, by their own testimonies, as indicated in the article, have been motivated by spiritual phenomena in the perpetration of crime. It is necessary to indicate that the article does not favour a purely spiritual (or religious) approach to crime but calls for an epistemological assumption within Criminology that encourages philosophical debates and theory development, giving consideration to spirituality. This article argues for a pre-theoretical debate in criminological philosophy1 and to develop our research into a phenomenological capacity to deal with metaphysical issues.
Highlights
Criminological philosophy attempts to introduce philosophy of crime and existential epistemology, as a foundation for research, from which theory can be developed
Scientists are not comfortable when confronted by mysticism, metaphysical tendencies and religion
If one cannot observe deceitful thoughts, can we argue that they do not occur because they are unobservable? Should we not rely on informants’ experiences of spiritual things and how it affects them? criminologists should not reject metaphysical perspectives but study them from the lived experiences of informants
Summary
Criminological philosophy attempts to introduce philosophy of crime and existential epistemology, as a foundation for research, from which theory can be developed. As Himes and Schulenberg (2013:1) put it, “Philosophy and theory are perpetually linked; philosophy influences how one sees the world, theory shapes how one intentionally interacts with that world”. This means that our philosophical foundation will determine how we see the world and that will determine how we interact with our surroundings. The aim of this article is rather to make a call for the introduction of criminological philosophy in an attempt to introduce metaphysical and other phenomena, into a criminological perspective and to challenge researchers ( with an ethno-criminological perspective) to eventually develop theory within a metaphysical framework. It is not necessary to prove the existence of supernatural phenomena and things like demons and angels but rather to develop research that can develop an understanding of how these phenomena (true or not) affect behaviour
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