Naturalistic Theory of Religion in Pomponazzi's De Incantationibus and its Significance
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| Year of publication | 2015 |
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| Description | Conspicuously omitted in the recent survey of the subject by Blum (2010), as well as from overviews of explanatory accounts of religion (e.g., Preus 1987 begins his treatment with Jean Bodin), Pomponazzi's general theory of religion exposed in the twelfth chapter of his treatise De incantationibus did not yet command the merited scholarly attention, which is, incidentally, true also for the treatise itself, standing in the shadow of his major works De immortalite animae and De fato, having received modern critical edition only in 2011. Main aim of the paper consists therefore of detailed discussion of Pomponazzi's theory and, more importantly, its contextualization within the frame of Western critical reflection of the phenomenon of religion. Paper argues that naturalistic (and, by extension, reductionist) theories of religion flourishing in the works of presocratic philosophers and in Lucretius' adaptation of Epicureanism in his De rerum natura virtually disappear throughout the Medieval period. The significance of Pomponazzi's theory highlighted in the paper lies precisely in the revival of these naturalistic, explanatory and reductionist approaches to religion. |
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