BEYOND BRACKETING: ESSENCE AND INTERNAL COHERENCE AS THE CORE OF RELIGIOUS PHENOMENOLOGY

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The phenomenology of religion offers a non-reductive approach to religious studies that seeks to understand religion as sui generis. This approach, besides other features, emphasizes the suspension of presuppositions or, in other words braketing (epoché) to study religions. Building on Husserl’s foundational notions of epoché and intentionality of consciousness, major scholars in the study of religion have contributed to the phenomenology of religion. However, the phenomenology of religion faces critical challenges.  The most controversial is the authenticity of epoché itself, and it is the strongest objection to it. Critics, including Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Hans-Georg Gadamer, argue that a pure suspension of presuppositions is unattainable due to the embodied, historically situated nature of human consciousness and understanding. Many scholars in the study of religion hold similar views. This paper weighs these critiques by using the phenomenological-hermeneutical method and proposes that the essence of religion or “religious worldview” may inherently require approaching religions from within their own coherent worldviews rather than striving for complete bracketing. It makes the point that bracketing makes sense when reductive approaches to religion are excluded. However, bracketing pre-understanding of ordinary language is not necessary; yet, the special meaning of the concepts in a religion still needs bracketing by necessity. Through comparative illustrations from Buddhism and Abrahamic religions, this study demonstrates that religious worldviews embody phenomenal characteristics and internal coherence that make strict epoché less necessary. Ultimately, the phenomenology of religion needs a balanced view recognizing the limits of methodological idealism or epoché while affirming the irreducibility of religion and its autonomous status.