Experience and hermeneutics in the history of religions – a hypothesis on Mircea Eliade’s work

The aim of this study is to analyse the fundamentals of Eliade’s view of the History of Religions, with a focus on the origins of this view, in the context of the criticism against the field of study corresponding to religious studies as they have developed over the last two centuries. The first part of the study briefly evaluates religious studies as to where it falls on a spectrum ranging from scientific objectivity to ideology, while the second part aims at developing the hypothesis according to which the principles of the study of religions are found in the notion of “experience,” under the determinative influence of Nae Ionescu’s lectures.