Religion, science and transdisciplinarity: The afro-religious knowledge as a study object

Abstract

The objective of this work is to foster a debate about the relation between scientific and religious knowledge, having this reflection led by the African-originated religions and the knowledge produced by them. More specifically, it intends to approach not only the possible controversies between scientific knowledge and other forms of knowledge, but also the possible strategies for overcoming those quarrels, observing the social implications that refer to the afro-religious knowledge as an interesting analysis object. Thus, the text discusses some aspects of the African-originated religions taking the dimension of the knowledge produced by them as the main point of analysis, as well as their social implications, from a reflexive approach about the contents which compound an original Africanist cosmovision, and its consequent adaptation to contemporary society. It aims to approximate such thematic with a discussion related to the modern society’s typical processes of knowledge, in addition to a possible crisis of paradigm related to this model, and finally observing the appearance of new approaches of knowledge.

Key words: afro-religious knowledge, sociology of knowledge, transdisciplinarity.