| Summary: | Writing dissertations, papers, or articles on a variety of religions, often foreign to us, sometimes even extinct, we more often than not find ourselves between two opposing theoretical camps, each deprecating the other, one being accused of »colonizing the Other,« the second of promoting a boundless relativism. Why does scientific explanation tend to »disenchant« its objects (Weber)? And what is the option, assuming we want to revert neither to the romantic Nacherlebnis of Dilthey, nor to the relativism inherent in much post-modernist work? I would like to speak about possible ways between these camps and will venture a third option, one that tries to evade the old and influential dichotomy of (subjective) interpretation and (objective) explanation.
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