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| AI與宗教研究：從Donald Wiebe的諾思底式的認知（gnostic knowing）談起 |
| AI and Religious Studies: Starting with Donald Wiebe’s Concept of Gnostic Knowing |
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| 作者 |
張毅民 |
| Author |
Iee-Ming Chang |
| 關鍵詞 |
AI與宗教、
諾思底式認知、
方法論、
研究倫理、
Donald Wiebe
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| Keywords |
AI and religion,
gnostic knowing,
methodology,
research ethics,
Donald Wiebe
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| 摘要 |
在人工智能與數位科技興起的時代，AI 信仰與各種新興宗教現象成為宗教研究的新課題。本文主張，面對此一新對象，研究者除了描繪主題，更須反省自身的研究方法與認知模式。宗教學者多出身於特定宗教傳統，除基督宗教外，亦有佛教、道教、華人民間宗教、伊斯蘭教等背景，既有的信仰範式往往不自覺地成為理解的前提，使研究流於護教或比附。本文借用Donald Wiebe對「諾思底式認知」與「認識論式認知」的區分，指出宗教研究中普遍存在的諾思底傾向，並將其原針對西方宗教學界的批判，擴展至AI 與宗教的研究者。文末提出兩點省思：其一，研究者應留意自身所受的宗教訓練，勿讓其價值觀成為學術理解的前提，使AI 時代的宗教研究淪為護教或比附；其二，研究方法與態度不僅關乎學術品質，更是一項公共倫理的責任，對方法論的批判性自我覺察，應是AI 時代宗教研究者不可迴避的倫理責任。 |
| Abstract |
AI-related beliefs and practices have become a new subject for the study of religion. This article argues that scholars who take up this subject need to reflect critically on their own methods and modes of knowing, and not simply describe what they find. Many scholars of religion were trained within a particular tradition, whether Christianity, Buddhism, Daoism, Chinese folk religions or Islam, and they often unknowingly read AI phenomena through that tradition’s categories. The result is sometimes apologetics, sometimes forced analogy that assimilates new phenomena into familiar religious frameworks. Donald Wiebe’s distinction between “gnostic” and “epistemic” knowing gives us a name for this habit. The article first sets out Wiebe’s case against confessional scholarship and his diagnosis of a gnostic strain in modern religious studies, and then considers the objections of his critics. The final section extends Wiebe’s critique, originally directed at the Western academy, to scholars of AI and religion. Two conclusions follow. Researchers should not let their own religious commitments become the premises of their analysis, though they should still attend, as Wilfred Cantwell Smith urged, to what beliefs mean to those who hold them. And because such work shapes public understanding of AI, reflecting on method is an ethical duty as well as a matter of scholarly rigor. |
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