Civilizations -narrate themselves- in order to establish legitimacy, succeed against others, portray their own merits to their best advantage. The results express societal dynamics, yet also have a retroactive effect and decisively influence the self-conceptions of the -initiating societies-. Political philosophies, interpretations of history and social perceptions of artistic achievements all contribute to these narratives. The dignified components, however, are by no means the sole or even the most important ones. Distinction in material culture (technological proficiency, popular art...

The divide between the techno-scientific and the humanities paradigm has critically endangered general comprehension. The prolegomena to a -unified field theory of futurology- presented here attempt to reconcile these epistemological models by meticulously investigating a gamut of supposedly separate areas, from the social use of art or religion via demographic, economic and technological data to moral and political philosophy. This highly panoramatic and integrative inspection of problems humankind will be facing in the near and foreseeable future yields novel perspectives and a superior...

Sinceits founding by Jacques Waardenburg in 1971, Religion and Reason has been a leading forum for contributions on theories, theoretical issues and agendas related to the phenomenon and the study of religion. Topics include (among others) category formation, comparison, ethnophilosophy, hermeneutics, methodology, myth, phenomenology, philosophy of science, scientific atheism, structuralism, and theories of religion. From time to time the series publishes volumes that map the state of the art and the history of the discipline.