Recognition and Religion A Historical and Systematic Study

4

Recognition in Religion

A Systematic Outline

4.1. The Emergence of Historical Paradigms

At this point, we need to stop and ask what has actually been
achieved in Chapters 2 and 3. I have been looking at the history
of the headwordsagnosco,recognosco, and their vernacular equiva-
lents (acknowledge, recognize,anerkennen) in religious sources.
My procedure has been similar to the German way of doing
Begriffsgeschichte, that is, the intellectual history of given concepts.
The critical question to ask is whether the history of such headwords
really manifests an intellectual history of unit ideas or themes. How
can we distinguish such an intellectual history from a mere etymol-
ogy of headwords?

4.1.1. Conceptual Tools

In section 1.4 I adopted a pragmatic way of identifying the concept
of recognition through three basic features or components. Whenever
the headwords express a) a cognitive component (identification), b)
an evaluative or socially binding component (attachment), and c) a
relationship between the recognizer and the recognizee (availability),
the texts employing these headwords are interpreted as instances of
recognition. I am not claiming that a), b), and c) are in themselves
sufficient to constitute the concept of recognition, simply that these
features, appearing together, allow us tofind historical instances of
religious recognition.