Bridging the two cultures or re-rectifying incommensurability? A commentary on Ariel Gluklich’s The Joy of Religion
Religion Brain & Behavior April 3, 2021 A. Petersen
A review of Ariel Gluklich's The Joy of Religion (2020) finds the book's ambitious attempt to bridge scientific and cultural approaches to religious joy ultimately unsatisfactory. The author argues that while Gluklich acknowledges pleasure as a biological fact amenable to cognitive science and evolutionary biology, he treats cultural pleasure as escaping scientific explanation. This creates an apologetic tenor that elevates philosophical phenomenology over science, reestablishing a dichotomy between explanation and interpretation rather than overcoming it. The reviewer concludes that the incommensurability between the two approaches prevents a persuasive synthesis.