Abstract

SUAREZ, Hugo José. Conocimiento y religión: Pensando desde América Latina. Intersticios sociales [online]. 2013, n.5, pp.37-52. ISSN 2007-4964.

In the article, there is a reflection around the question: how sociological knowledge is created from the religious experience?, and particularly, what are the consequences of that issue for Latin America? For this purpose, three ideas are developed. First, there is an exposition of the premiss to study religion appealing to Durkheim teachings, who affirmed that the objective must not be to be restricted to the religious aspect, but to inquire the human experience as a whole, intending to reveal "an esencial and permanent aspect in humanity". In the second part, warnings, limits, and temptations to consider in the task of the study of religions are exposed. Finally, there is a reflection about how that topic has been approached in Latin America. For that purpose, the book of Roberto Cipriani, Manual de Sociologia de las religiones, is critically reconsidered, and the author develops a proposal of an alternative route for this matter.

Keywords : knowledge and religion; religion in Latin America; sociology of religion.