فریبا طشت زر

Desacralizing of knowledge in the modern world and overcoming Cartesian dualism, and as a result, the alienation of man with the cosmos, led to the separation of man from the world. Despite its new name, anthropocosmic vision has a long history in religions and has attracted the attention of thinkers in various fields, including Religious Studies, in recent decades. With the harmony and correspondence between man and the world, or in other words, microcosm and macrocosm as its implications, this essentially mystical vision illuminates many doctrines of religions based on the unity of self-knowledge, cosmology, and theology. This paper, first of all, deals with the anthropocosmic vision, its definition and description, and then with its history expressed in various religious traditions, and then examines it as an approach in academic studies of religion. Achieving to a kind of ontological epistemology can be of its outcomes. Also, one can understand the conformity of the ritualistic order with the cosmic order in the religions.

The theory of “late modernity” is the key to understand Giddens’ thought on religion and his critique of early sociologists. According to Giddens, religion has had two different phases in early and late modernity. The misunderstanding of the nature of the early modernity led to some wrong predictions about the future of religion as some sociologists claimed that religion would eventually disappear. However in late modernity, given its specific characteristics, appeal for religion and spirituality has increased. By surveying the outcomes of the modernity and criticizing the views of early sociologists (such as Marx, Durkheim and Weber) Giddens asserts that religion is not going to be abolish. Nevertheless, religious revival of late modernity does not indicate that religion will return to its traditional condition. A compromise between modernity and religion could be possible, provided that religion undergoes ongoing reflexivity and dialogue.