Pragmatic Pluralism And The Problem Of God

The book is a study of pragmatism and pragmatic pluralism in the philosophy of religion. Through critical examinations of James's, Dewey's, and recent neopragmatists' ideas, it argues that key issues in the field--including the debate between evidentialism and fideism, and the problem of evil--need rearticulation from a pragmatic pluralistic perspective.

Inspired by pragmatism, this book addresses religious plurality with the aim of bringing forth how it may be approached constructively by Christian theology. Accordingly, not doctrine, but practices are focussed in its analyses of interreligious topics. Henriksen argues that engagement with the diversity of religious traditions should be grounded in openness towards the other, and resistance against making others similar to oneself. Accordingly, the book presents a theological approach where interaction between religious practitioners is considered a benefit and a necessity for the positive future of religious traditions. It will be of interest to anyone who is interested in the understanding of religious pluralism from the point of view of Christian theology.

Pragmatic Theology argues for a vision of religious life that is derived from the tradition of American pragmatism (James, Dewey, Royce); empirical theology (Chicago School, D.C. Macintosh, H. Richard Niebuhr); and American philosophy of religion (Stone, Frankenberry, Corrington). The author argues that there is a divine reality in human experience that when encountered gives meaning and value to a person's need for cultural fulfillment and to his or her religious need for self-transcendence. The book commends the openness of nature, the world, and human experience to creative transformation and growth. It supports the increase of human capacities to create morally livable and fulfilling communities, the enhancement of the free play of interpretation, and a social order where democratic utopian expectations are envisioned and actualized.

In Pragmatic Philosophy of Religion: Melioristic Case Studies, Ulf Zackariasson argues for the fruitfulness of pragmatic philosophy of religion by bringing it to bear on a number of classical topics within the contemporary philosophy of religion. Zackariasson first outlines a version of pragmatic philosophy of religion that takes the pragmatic insistence on the primacy of practice to heart. Here, he shows that religious traditions and their secular counterparts transmit a number of paradigmatic responses that adherents can draw on in their encounters with human life’s existential contingencies. He further discusses the upshot of this approach for how we think of miracles, religious diversity, and what it is to be religiously mistaken. In each case, Zackariasson shows that a pragmatic approach offers important novel perspectives and insights that contemporary (primarily analytic) philosophy of religion tends to neglect. By relating to debates and well-known positions within the contemporary philosophy of religion, he also makes these novel perspectives and insights concrete for those who are not already committed pragmatists. The case studies thus serve as invitations to constructive dialogue within an increasingly pluralistic philosophy of religion.

A team of international experts present a collection of articles on William James's philosophy of religion and its current relevance. A new look at his philosophy of religion is crucially important for the development of this field of inquiry today.

This book deals with the intellectual aspects of having diverse religious expressions in proximity and the socio-political consequences. It provides a multi-disciplinary perspective on this complex subject, cross-fertilizing work on religious plurality with truth-claims from theologians as well as philosophers from the continental and analytic traditions. The book includes three major parts. Part 1 explores the ideas around religious diversity and truth; Part 2 draws out the epistemic import of religious diversity; and Part 3 concludes the volume by examining the practical and social aspects of religious diversity. Bringing a transdisciplinary perspective to a topic that remains at the forefront of conversation around the religious life of the world, this book will be of great interest to scholars of Religious Studies, Theology and the Philosophy of Religion.

This volume focuses on the American philosopher and psychologist William James and his engagements with European thought, together with the multidisciplinary reception of his work on both sides of the Atlantic since his death. James participated in transatlantic conversations in science, philosophy, psychology, religion, ethics, and literature.

As a traditional theological issue and in its broader secular varieties, theodicy remains a problem in the philosophy of religion. In this remarkable book, Sami Pihlström provides a novel critical reassessment of the theodicy discourse addressing the problem of evil and suffering. He develops and defends an antitheodicist view, arguing that theodicies seeking to render apparently meaningless suffering meaningful or justified from a ‘God’s-Eye-View’ ultimately rely on metaphysical realism failing to recognize the individual perspective of the sufferer. Pihlström thus shows that a pragmatist approach to the realism issue in the philosophy of religion is a vital starting point for a re-evaluation of the problem of theodicy. With its strong positions and precise arguments, the volume provides a new approach which is likely to stimulate discussion in the wider academic world of philosophy of religion.