Page:Vital New Matters - The Speculative Turn in the Study of Religion and Gender.pdf/22

Rh Currently, there is simply nothing within religious studies that takes this proposal seriously and explores what dividends it might pay.

What Matters?

I conclude with a declaration. One ought to praise the labours and achievements of the gender-critical turn in the study of religions, and one ought to understand the genealogy of that critique. Much is owed to the legacy of Kant, and much is owed to the feminist struggle for a liberated world. Regrettably, the former increasingly constrains the aspirations of the latter. Antirealism is ill-suited to the liberation of the world. The time is crying out for a renewed thinking of the things-in-themselves and a revived metaphysical realism. This need not entail naive or immature realism; the errors of the past can be retained in memory. But it may need to be speculative. There can be no paradigm shift in the study of religion or gender until genuinely ontological questions are addressed.

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