Expanding ‘religion’ or decentring the secular? Framing the frames in philosophy of religion

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-19
Author(s):  
RICHARD AMESBURY
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Classical Theism ◽  
Colonial Encounter

AbstractNew cross-cultural approaches to philosophy of religion seek to move it beyond the preoccupations of Christian theology and the abstractions of ‘classical theism’, towards an appreciation of a broader range of religious phenomena. But if the concept of religion is itself the product of extrapolation from modern, Western, Christian understandings, disseminated through colonial encounter, does the new philosophy of religion simply reproduce the deficiencies of the old, under the guise of a universalizing, albeit culturally and historically particular, category? This article argues that it is necessary to interrogate the secular episteme within which religion is thematized as a discrete topos.

Nygren, Anders (1890–1978)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diogenes Allen
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Liberal Theology

Nygren hoped to recover the uniqueness of Christianity from the impurities introduced by the attempts of nineteenth-century liberal theology to free it from metaphysical speculation and confessional dogmatism. He aimed to do this by grounding all religion in an analytic philosophy of religion which would enable him to stress the objective character of Christian theology in contrast to the arbitrariness of confessional theology. He achieved international influence by his claim in Agapē and Eros (1930–6) that the uniqueness of Christianity is love in the sense of agapē, as opposed to Platonic eros.

Hospitality and the ethics of religious diversity

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-79
Author(s):  
KEVIN SCHILBRACK
Keyword(s):  
Religious Diversity ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Moral Judgement ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Moral Ideal ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
Religious Other ◽  
Cultural Discipline

AbstractAs the discipline of philosophy of religion stretches to become a global, cross-cultural discipline, it takes on ethical questions about how one should treat those who participate in religious forms of life one does not share. This article offers a typology of possible ethical positions in a context of religious diversity and argues that the strongest position is one of conditional hospitality. That is, the moral ideal proposed here is one of welcome to the religious other that is conditional on an accurate moral judgement of their practices, beliefs, and institutions.

Death in Colonial North America: Cross-Cultural Encounters

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik R. Seeman
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Mortality Rates ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Mortuary Practices ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Cultural Encounters ◽  
North Americans ◽  
Labor Exploitation ◽  
Cultural Boundaries ◽  
Colonial Encounter

Death is universal yet is experienced in culturally specific ways. Because of this, when individuals in colonial North America encountered others from different cultural backgrounds, they were curious about how unfamiliar mortuary practices resembled and differed from their own. This curiosity spawned communication across cultural boundaries. The resulting knowledge sometimes facilitated peaceful relations between groups, while at other times it helped one group dominate another. Colonial North Americans endured disastrously high mortality rates caused by disease, warfare, and labor exploitation. At the same time, death was central to the religions of all residents: Indians, Africans, and Europeans. Deathways thus offer an unmatched way to understand the colonial encounter from the participants’ perspectives.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayon Maharaj
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Philosophy ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Philosophical Inquiry ◽  
Recent Movement ◽  
Cultural Philosophy ◽  
Cultural Project

The introduction articulates the two main aims of the book. The book’s exegetical aim is to provide accurate and charitable reconstructions of Sri Ramakrishna’s philosophical views on the basis of his recorded oral teachings. Throughout the book, the task of philosophical exegesis goes hand in hand with a broader cross-cultural project: bringing Sri Ramakrishna into creative dialogue with recent Western philosophers, thereby shedding new light on central problems in cross-cultural philosophy of religion. As a contribution to this nascent field, the book participates in the recent movement away from comparative philosophy and toward more creative and flexible paradigms for engaging in philosophical inquiry across cultures.

A Brief Overview of the Many Alternatives to Classical Theism, and How to Decide between Them

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 138-159
Author(s):  
Raphael Lataster
Keyword(s):  
Bayesian Approach ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
Western World ◽  
Classical Theism ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Many

Abstract In the analytic Philosophy of Religion, much ink has been spilt on the existence of some sort of supernatural reality. Such work is usually done by theists, those who find classical theism to be probably true. It is my contention that the premises invoked in the common arguments or derivations for God’s existence do not necessarily lead to the god of theism. In this article, I note that these premises could also lead to various alternative naturalistic and supernaturalistic hypotheses (some of which are actualised throughout the non-Western world). As such, the main focus here is on describing some of the many naturalistic and supernaturalistic alternatives to classical theism, especially since several of these alternatives are generating discussion in the recent literature; explaining why a number of these alternatives are considered plausible by their proponents; and proposing how we might decide which theory is true, eventually endorsing a Bayesian approach.

Power, other-worldliness, and the extended mind

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 370-389
Author(s):  
ADAM GREEN
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Extended Mind ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Natural Power ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Religious Praxis

AbstractIn this article, I use the extended mind literature to elucidate religious phenomena that are normally left well outside the purview of analytic philosophy of religion. I show that the extended mind literature casts light on how the potential relationships of the ordinary believer to extra-natural power dictate cross-culturally re-occurring ways of structuring religious praxis. This application of the extended mind illuminates a diverse but subtly interconnected set of religious phenomena, from the cross-cultural appeal of magic as a negative category to the role of other-worldliness in the major world religions.

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