ABSTRACT
This entry explores pragmatist approaches to the philosophy of religion and, more generally, the study of religion. While the focus is on philosophical investigations of religion, no dualism between philosophical and empirical perspectives on this topic is presupposed, as pragmatist accounts are typically (broadly) naturalist, avoiding such essentialist dichotomies. Generally, antiessentialism can be regarded as one of the main characteristics of pragmatist ways of understanding religion: neither religious phenomena themselves nor the philosophical and methodological principles guiding our study of those phenomena can be narrowly reduced to a single overarching essence. Pragmatism is valuable for both our understanding of religious faith (or life) itself and for our understanding of how religious faith (and life) ought to be studied, explained, and understood – empirically, conceptually, and philosophically.
