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African religions, mythic narratives, and conceptual enrichment in the philosophy of religion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

MIKEL BURLEY Open the ORCID record for MIKEL BURLEY [Opens in a new window]
MIKEL BURLEY*
Affiliation:
School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK
*
e-mail: m.m.burley@leeds.ac.uk
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Abstract

Myths, or sacred narratives, have been underexplored in mainstream philosophy of religion, which has also had little to say about African indigenous religions. These lacunae impoverish the philosophy of religion by diminishing its coverage both of the range of human religious possibilities and of the diverse modes through which religious ideas and world-views are conveyed. With particular attention to Yorùbá religion, this article promotes and exemplifies a pluralistic narrative approach that draws upon mythology to facilitate philosophical reflection upon a wider array of religious traditions, for the dual purpose of doing conceptual justice to those traditions while also furthering the discipline's conceptual enrichment.

Type
Original Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 58 , Issue 1 , March 2022 , pp. 1 - 17
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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