Universals, general terms and the comparative study of religion

A comparative study of religion rests on comparison and generalization. Bot h require that the object of study, the subject matter of various religions have something in common - certain properties that warrant their juxtaposi tion in analyses. If they had nothing in common, "the study" of religion wo uld not make any sense. But it seemingly does, thus "religions" presumably form a subject matter with certain regularities. Such regularities may be " emic universals" on the level of socio-cultural formations and they may be "etic universals" on the levels of the analysts' stock of general terms - a nd the two levels are connected. this article focuses mainly on the role of universals as general concepts in method and theory, i.e., on the status a nd use of etic level generalizations such as models, maps, metaphors that a re constructed in order to explain and make sense, as general terms, of emi c level entities, properties, functions, structures etc. The last part conc erns the use of universals in four modes of comparison of material, cogniti ve and symbolic matters.