Abstract
This chapter explores the concept of explanatory pluralism and its importance within academic religious studies and the scientific study of religion. Though it is easy to see that religious phenomena can be fruitfully explained from a variety of disciplinary perspectives—anthropological, psychological, sociological, historical, neurological, biological, etc.—there is widespread resistance within academic religious studies to explanatory pluralism, especially with respect to explanations arising within the scientific study of religion. Grounded in wider concerns about explanation as a cognitive goal, the potential distortions inherent in any definition of “religion,” and the ever-deepening crisis of the humanities, this hesitation about explanatory pluralism is understandable, yet misguided. In the final analysis, the need for explanatory pluralism is rooted in the multileveled complexity of human religions, which inextricably involve human bodies, brains, societies, and cultures. To illustrate the point, the concluding section highlights several examples of fruitful synthetic approaches within the scientific study of religion.
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