Shifting the spotlight: What do we mean by ‘religious language’?

Abstract

Abstract There are mainly two types of questions asked about religious language: those about identity (e.g., what is a religious language?) and those about meaning (e.g., what do its sentences say?). Most philosophers focus on the latter because while they disagree about meaning, they agree that some sentences are religious and that our understanding of them does not depend on us knowing what makes them religious. In this article, I provide two reasons why questions about identity should receive more attention. First, theories of identity and theories of meaning share a two-way relationship where the characteristics of one influence those of the other, and so overlooking identity overlooks important characteristics of meaning. Second, the study of religious language has been shaped by this relationship for some time and being aware of it improves our understanding of conventional trends and contemporary debates. If successful, this article will motivate philosophers to reconsider the role of identity in research and to dedicate more effort to its study.