Existentialism claims that there is no human reality except in action: pragmatism argues that meaning and truth are given only in practice. Wittgenstein calls for attention to forms of life, Marxism calls for attention to doing, and feminism calls for attention to the body. What do these tell us about ritual acts and their connection to spirit and to truth in Christianity and other world religions?
Religious rituals have a special status as virtually pure forms of belief in action. "Thinking Through Rituals" asks how philosophical tools like existentialism and Marxism can help us to understand the thought behind actions such as tasting the Christian host, joining in ceremony and speaking sacred words.
"Thinking Through Rituals" proposes a new philosophical understanding of rituals as mental strategies giving access to knowledge of the world, in opposition to traditional approaches which see rituals as forms of social organization and control. Covering areas including the body, pilgrimage, initiation, sacrifice and art, this is an exciting look at the relationship between doing and meaning which is implied by ritual practice, but most fully explained by philosophical theory.

Kevin Schilbrack is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Wesleyan College, Georgia. A graduate of the University of Chicago Divinity School, he is the editor of Thinking Through Myths: Philosophical Perspectives (Routledge, 2002).

Notes on contributors Acknowledgements Introduction: on the use of philosophy in the study of rituals Kevin Schilbrack 1. Ritual, body technique, and (inter)subjectivity Nick Crossley 2. Practce, belief, and feminist philosophy of religion Amy Hollywood 3. Rites of passing: Foucault, power, and same-sex commitement ceremonies Ladelle McWhorter 4. Scapegoat rituals in Wittgensteinian perspective Brian Clack 5. Ritual inquiry: the pragmatic logic of religious practice Michael L. Raposa 6. Ritual metaphysics Kevin Schilbrack 7. Philosophical naturalism and the cognitive appraoch to ritual Robert McCauley 8. Theories and facts on ritual simultaneities Frits Staal 9. Moral cultivation through ritual participation: Xunzi's philosophy of ritual T.C Kline III 10. The ritual roots of moral reason: lessons from Mimamsa Jonardon Ganeri 11. Ritual gives rise to thought: liturgical reasoning in modern Jewish philosophy Steven Kepnes 12. Ritual and Christian philosophy Charles Taliaferro 13. Religious rituals, spiritually disciplined practices, and health Peter Van Ness Index