Comparing comparison: Smith and Davidson

Abstract

Comparison, as a method in the study of religion, has received considerable criticism in recent years. Much of the discussion addresses what we call the dilemma of religious comparison: either similarities between the cases compared are real and the differences accidental, or the differences are real and the similarities merely apparent. The first path is held to artificially impose similarity by wrongly privileging one of the things being compared, which imposes an essentialist view, taking its characteristic as the measure of all comparable cases. The other path exaggerates differences between comparands, undermining the very premise of comparison. We argue that this apparent dilemma presupposes a representational conception of meaning, namely that the task of comparison is to discover what kind of thing is represented by the cases being compared. However, there are other conceptions of meaning that might can potentially avoid or resolve the dilemma, by reorientating the basic conception of comparison, as opposed to entering into details of recent critical debates. This article argues that interpretationism, an approach to meaning associated with philosopher Donald Davidson does just this. JZ Smith did not explicitly adopt any semantic theory. But we demonstrate that he implicitly endorsed all of its main elements in his work on comparison. Smith’s writings represent a rich and detailed model of how comparison can be carried out under an interpretationist semantics. This article has two important implications for the study of religion. First, it dissolves the dilemma of religious comparison, suggesting a firmer theoretical and methodological basis for comparative studies. Second, it underlines that Smith’s work serves as a powerful and practical model of comparative method, as constructed on this basis. As a corollary, an interdisciplinary side-benefit, reading Smith in light of Davidson also makes important contributions to philosophy of language.