Religion and theory

Mark C. Taylor is an internationally renowned scholar of religion. This essay, however, problematises Taylor's use of 'Theory', especially in his earlier work. It argues that Taylor's commitment to aesthetic transcendentalism limits his contributions to explanatory and heuristic theory. While not denying Taylor's originality or the merits of his contributions to performative theory, it suggests that the pattern of Taylor's development as a religious studies intellectual illustrates a logically problematic use of Theory in the Humanities.