종교연구에서 "유형론"과 "형태론": 그 전략적 구분의 가능성과 의의

Abstract

This article discusses the terms 'typology' and 'morphology' as they are employed in the Study of Religion. Methodologies which employ these terms can be regarded as critical responses to classical taxonomies of religions which tend to make lists of 'world religions' and Linnaean-like charts of religions. Each methodology, however, has its different histories and intentions. Proposed as a system of groupings, typology uses 'types' as units of classification. A type may represent one kind of attribute that is significant for the problem at hand. Because of this, typologies can be used for the study of variables and of transitional situations, such as religions. W. B. Kristensen, G. van der Leeuw, and others employ typological methods. Morphology, an inventive methodological term apparently first employed by Goethe, is mainly concerned about the formation and transformation of subject matters. The primary object in this methodology is to develop perspicuous synoptic viewing of formal relationships, connections or intermediate links between the units of classification. It seems to go contrary to the general intention of the taxonomical enterprise. In the Study of Religion, we can consider M. Eliade's work as a significant example of morphology. To sum up, typology can be placed as an elaborated and expanded taxonomical classification; what morphology aims at is beyond the taxonomical enterprise.