Jack David Eller

This book unites the burgeoning scholarly literature on not-believing in various disciplines into a proposed new field of apisteology. It demonstrates that not-believing—like not-knowing—is a worthy and distinct subject and not merely a vacuum where belief (like knowledge) is lacking. Several contemporary issues appear repeatedly in the book, such as conspiracy theories, vaccine skepticism, climate change denial, and fake news. Each chapter begins with a vignette on one of these topics and ends with a section looking ahead to what certain disciplinary approaches to not-believing can tell us. Not only does this format allow us to consider how not-believing is pervasive and distinct, but it also allows us to consider what apisteology as a distinct field of study brings to the table. Ultimately, the book’s consistent appeals to the constructed quality of not-believing, to the trust and commitment dimensions of not-believing, and to the critique of “truth” as the central or only interest in “belief” make it key reading for scholars and students across the social sciences and humanities.

Beyond Liminality: Ontologies of Abundant Betweenness examines the concept of liminality in the social sciences and humanities, and advocates for a more critical use of the concept while offering more precise alternatives. Originally conceived in response to the near-universal ritualization of changes of status (i.e., 'rites of passage'), liminality was a welcome and much-needed correction to the reigning static and structural models of culture at the time. However, it soon escapes its initial realm and was enthusiastically--and most uncritically--absorbed by many if not all scholarly disciplines. The very success of the concept suggests that there is something about it that resonates with our own cultural sentiments. However, the assumptions that underlie diagnoses of liminality are seldom noted and even more seldom analyzed and critiqued. This book examines the history of the concept, its evolution, and its current status, and asks whether liminality accurately reflects lived realities which might better be described by fluidity, hybridity, multiplicity, constant motion and recombination, and abundant betweenness. Beyond Liminality: Ontologies of Abundant Betweenness is key reading for scholars and students across the social sciences and humanities interested in ritual, performance, identity formation, rights, ontology, and epistemology.

In this paper, I address the question of whether metaphysics and theology are or can become science. After examining the qualities of contemporary science, which evolved from an earlier historic concept of any body of literature into a formal method for obtaining empirical knowledge, I apply that standard to metaphysics and theology. I argue that neither metaphysics nor theology practices a scientific method or generates scientific knowledge. Worse, I conclude that both metaphysics and theology are at best purely cultural projects—exercises in exegesis of local cultural and religious ideas and language—and, therefore, that other cultures have produced or would produce radically different schemes of metaphysics or theology. At its worst, metaphysics is speculation about the unknowable, while theology is rumination about the imaginary.

This accessible book introduces the story of social science, with coverage of history, politics, economics, sociology, psychology, anthropology, and geography. Key questions include: How and why did the social sciences originate and differentiate? How are they related to older traditions that have defined Western civilization? What is the unique perspective or way of knowing of each social science? What are the challenges and alternatives to the social sciences as they stand in the twenty-first century? Eller explains the origin, evolution, methods, and the main figures, literature, concepts, and theories in each discipline. The chapters also feature a range of contemporary examples, with consideration given to how the disciplines address present-day issues. "