Existentially Important Issues & Philosophy of Religion

Keith Haring, Moses and the Burning Bush (1985)

I’ve long felt that the standing that philosophy of religion occupies in the field of philosophy is disproportionate to its potential importance in contending with critically important contemporary problems (e.g., in connection with environmental crises, racism and cultural diversities, the nature of democratic politics and ideas of nationhood, and so on). 

One can perhaps sense this potential in a work like Martin Hägglund’s This Life, with his critique of “religious faith” (which in his view focuses on the value of a next life) and valorizing of “secular faith” (which he sees as aspiring to make this life as good as possible). Even if one thinks Hägglund is far too hasty and sweeping in his depiction of religious traditions and their ultimate goals (as I do), he's certainly correct in holding that an attitude of faith or hope in addressing the many problems facing particular societies and/or the world as a whole is a matter of great importance. Others, such as David Newheiser, have also been exploring similar issues relating to hope, secularity, and deconstruction.

Of course, a lot of philosophy of religion does not concern itself with urgent existential concerns of the moment, and need not. When conducted in traditional contexts, philosophy of religion has focused on the local ends of the religion, culture, or time in question. I think here of the prayerful framing of Augustine’s Confessions or Anselm’s Proslogion (See John Clayton’s chapter “The Otherness of Anselm” in Religions, Reasons, and Gods). But I believe that some philosophy of religion should be engaged with existentially important issues and indeed that more and more does.

This sense of existential concern motivated me to write a conference paper back in 2010 that became an article, “The Problem of Relevance and the Future of Philosophy of Religion.” I first wrote the paper shortly after graduating from my PhD program at BU into the dire economic situation of the Great Recession and its consequent impacts on the humanities job market. At the time, it was unclear what sort of future philosophy of religion might have; it is still very unclear, but I am glad to see some signs of growth in globally engaged philosophy of religion over the last few years.

I gave an early version of the relevance paper at the AAR in 2010 and then adapted it into an article manuscript in 2013 at the same time as I was also preparing my manuscript for Wittgenstein Within the Philosophy of Religion. For this reason, the book and the article echo each other (especially in the book’s final chapters, with a reference to H. H. Price’s lecture “Clarity is Not Enough” and to the “crisis” facing philosophy of religion). 

My overall argument in the article did not depend so directly upon a reading of Wittgenstein, and my hope was that the article would have a wider readership than if I had made it explicitly about Wittgenstein. After surveying the precarious situation for philosophy of religion within the then contemporary academy, I argue in the article for three courses of action that would improve the academic and social relevance of philosophy of religion:

1. Critical self-awareness about one’s aims of inquiry and one’s audience(s). 

2. Investigation and analysis of concepts used by scholars in neighboring areas (e.g., philosophers, religious studies scholars). 

3. Focus on arguments and issues of contemporary practical urgency.

These days, I am most interested in the last of these courses of action, not for some utilitarian reason of advancing the interests of philosophy of religion in the academy but for how philosophy of religion may help people contend with the urgent practical issues in our world.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I concluded my Philosophy of Religion course with some reflection on existentially important issues. The idea wasn’t to identify what those most important issues are but to challenge students to consider for themselves what they thought were the one or two most important issues. Partly, I did this because I want students to consider the field not just a part of the global history of philosophy but as a potentially ongoing field of academic inquiry (a point that is potentially controversial in the Chinese context).

In my next post, I’ll reflect some of the remarks students posted in an online forum about existentially important issues.

James Baldwin and Philosophy of Religion

From the National Museum of African American History and Culture

This week, I taught James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time in my Philosophy of Religion course. It was the first time I taught any of Baldwin’s writings, even though I’ve been thinking and writing about his body of work in connection with philosophy of religion for some time.

I wasn’t entirely sure what it would be like to add Baldwin to the course, how this reading would retrospectively affect the readings and themes already covered in the course. Also, I wasn’t sure the extent to which Baldwin would be relevant to my students in China. After all, he is concerned primarily with the situation of white supremacy in the United States (and to some extent European societies). While racism appears just about everywhere in some form, its particular forms and the histories that shape instances of racism vary from one society to the next.

As it turns out, Baldwin appears to have joined the course very smoothly. I placed the reading last, after a journey through various religious philosophies and then an exploration of atheistic philosophy (in the form of Karl Marx and Martin Hägglund). With his searing critique of hypocritical features of Christianity (as well as the mythic narratives of the Nation of Islam) and exploration of the intertwining of Christianity and white supremacist ideology in American and European societies, Baldwin brings out an existential sensibility for philosophizing about religions. As Baldwin writes in The Fire Next Time: “If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him.” (Baldwin 1998, 314) In countering this threading of religion and white supremacism, Baldwin calls for clarity and honesty about history, skepticism about myths of innocence (whether national or religious), and love for others in all their humanity.

This is the theme I wanted to end the course on, that philosophy of religion can be concerned with (many of) the most important issues of the day. Already, some students have indicated an interest in writing on Baldwin for the final paper. In a future post, I’ll write about some of the urgent existential issues that stood out to students, meriting attention in philosophy of religion.

Reference 

Baldwin, James. 1998. James Baldwin Collected Essays, edited by Toni Morrison. New York: The Library of America.

Some thoughts on philosophy of lived religion

Hong Fa Temple (弘法寺) in Shenzhen

One of my goals in both my teaching and research is to work to expand the range of potential topics addressed within philosophy of religion. In religious studies, scholars have been familiar with the concept of “lived religion” and how focusing on it changes how one might study religions. The general idea is that religions should be studied in all their diverse manifestations, how religions are actually practiced--lived--rather than as merely the abstract, often ahistorical traditions or worldviews one may encounter in a World Religions textbook.

There’s a lot of promise in this approach, but philosophy of religion has largely not followed suit. While I’d like to see that change (at least in part), it’s understandable why it hasn’t really happened. After all, philosophy of religion can be a very conservative field. In recent times, it has largely been concerned either with engaging established problems in the field, such as the logic of divine attributes, the adequacy of theistic arguments, the justifiability of certain religious beliefs or engaging central philosophers linked with particular religious traditions or atheism/naturalism. Perhaps it is unclear where one might begin with a philosophy of lived religion. Philosophical approaches to religious claims about gods, the cosmos, or morality have begun with the work of other philosophers or religious intellectuals, not the idiosyncratic practices and beliefs of ordinary people.

In my Philosophy of Religion course, I have students conduct interviews with students outside the course about topics relating to ethics, identity, and attitudes about religions as an activity of collective brainstorming about potential new topics. Here are a two themes that stand out from multiple students’ interviews:

1. Conceptual investigation of cross-cultural forms of atheism. While many people today identify as atheist--especially in China(!!)--it’s not always clear that atheist commitment means a rejection of all forms of religious belief or practice (e.g, prayer, meditation); this includes those who may be committed to forms of atheism derived from Marxism. My sense is that there is a very wide variety of standpoints available that might be labeled as “atheist” beyond what one finds in “Western” treatments of the viewpoint.

2. Pragmatic modes of engaging with religions. While very few people in China will identify with being religious, many people will have experiences of visiting Buddhist or Daoist temples at charged moments in life and saying a prayer or lighting joss sticks because “maybe it will help.” For the most part, my sense is that it would be a mistake to interpret this behavior as implying an unacknowledged belief; rather, this mode of pragmatic engagement with religious practices seems to suggest to a different way of interacting with religious traditions. 

Anyhow, I'd like to write more about these topics in the future. My sense is that I'd probably go about analyzing them with some ideas from Wittgenstein's philosophy in mind (esp., from Philosophical Investigations and On Certainty).

Philosophy of Religion in China - 2022

Xilin Chan Buddhist Temple (西林禅寺), in the Songjiang District of Shanghai

This semester, I’m teaching a Philosophy of Religion course at CUHK-Shenzhen. It may seem to be a peculiar course to teach at a university in China. While measuring religiosity is far from straightforward, especially in China, it is commonplace to be told that Chinese people are atheists or otherwise are not religious. A class like this might then seem like it would be irrelevant to contemporary students in China; yet, the class has been well enrolled. 

If one has a more globally engaged conception of the field—as being internally varied, spanning histories, cultures, diverse religions, and multiple conceptions of philosophy and of religions—then philosophy of religion would be somewhat continuous with areas of philosophy, such as comparative philosophy and history of philosophy, areas that are well represented in China and East Asia. So, I would argue that globally engaged philosophy of religion (at least) is highly relevant to philosophy in East Asia.

When I teach the course, it is in many ways a course in metaphilosophy (as well as critical reflection on “religion”), drawing upon philosophical traditions from different cultural and historical locations. A key focus from week to week is how philosophers contend with particular religious and cultural traditions (e.g., Vedic philosophy, Buddhism, Confucianism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, contemporary atheism, secularism) and with the claims and arguments philosophers make about the cosmos, the self, what the meaning of a belief or practice really is, or what a meaningful life is.

I have students conduct some informal interviews with students outside the course about topics relating to ethics, identity, tradition, and religiosity as part of an activity of brainstorming potential new topics for philosophical inquiry into religiosities. I'll comment on some insights we’ve gained from these conversations in a future post, but I'll say for the moment that I'm convinced philosophy of religion is potentially a very rich area for inquiry in China.

Dusting this thing off...

With the troubles at Twitter lately, I'm thinking of trying this blog thing again. It might be a place for some informal writing and announcements about publications, etc.