Hick and Radhakrishnan on Religious Diversity: Back to the Kantian Noumenon
We shall examine some conceptual tensions in Hicks pluralism in the light of S. Radhakrishnans reformulation of classical Advaita. Hick himself often quoted Radhakrishnans translations from the Hindu scriptures in support of his own claims about divine ineffability, transformative experience an...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
|
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
[2015]
|
| In: |
Sophia
Year: 2015, Volume: 54, Issue: 2, Pages: 181-200 |
| IxTheo Classification: | AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism AX Inter-religious relations BK Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism CC Christianity and Non-Christian religion; Inter-religious relations TK Recent history |
| Further subjects: | B
John Hick
B Pluralism B S. Radhakrishnan |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | We shall examine some conceptual tensions in Hicks pluralism in the light of S. Radhakrishnans reformulation of classical Advaita. Hick himself often quoted Radhakrishnans translations from the Hindu scriptures in support of his own claims about divine ineffability, transformative experience and religious pluralism. However, while Hick developed these themes partly through an adaptation of Kantian epistemology, Radhakrishnan derived them ultimately from Sa?kara (c.800 CE), and these two distinctive points of origin lead to somewhat different types of reconstruction of the diversity of world religions. Our argument will highlight the point that Radhakrishnan is not a pluralist in terms of Hicks understanding of the Real. The Advaitin ultimate, while it too like Hicks Real cannot be encapsulated by human categories, is, however, not strongly ineffable, because some substantive descriptions, according to the Advaitic tradition, are more accurate than others. Our comparative analysis will reveal that they differ because they are located in two somewhat divergent metaphysical schemes. In turn, we will be able to revisit, through this dialogue between Hick and Radhakrishnan, the intensely vexed question of whether Hicks version of pluralism is in fact a form of covert exclusivism. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1873-930X |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Sophia
|
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1007/s11841-015-0459-z |