It's been just about twenty years since John Clayton (1943-2003) died. He was Professor and Chair of the Department of Religion at Boston University while I was a graduate student there. Clayton had a big influence on my early years in the program, when I was still searching out what sort of method or approach to take in philosophy of religion (continental hermeneutics, analytic philosophy of religion, Peircean pragmatism, Wittgenstein?). I took three classes from him while there--"Theoretical Approaches to the Study of Religion," "Reasons and Gods," and "Tillich"--as well as one directed study. While I learned a great deal from each of these courses, it was "Reasons and Gods" that had perhaps the greatest impact on how I would think about philosophy of religion.
The "Reasons and Gods" course invited students to explore philosophical terrain Clayton had surveyed in his Stanton Lectures at Cambridge in 1991-1992 and which later became the basis for his posthumous book, Religions, Reasons and Gods: Essays in Cross-Cultural Philosophy of Religion (2006). The course offered both an overview of "classic" theistic arguments (ontological, cosmological, teleological, moral) through the history of Western philosophy as well as across diverse philosophical and religious traditions (especially Mediterranean, European, Middle Eastern, and South Asian).
A key idea of Clayton's was that theistic arguments have often served purposes in addition to putative justification for religious beliefs; knowing the context of an argument is thus critical to interpreting its particular goal(s), the idea being that arguments about gods frequently aimed to edify religious commitments, express a sense of wonder at divine creativity, or support a favored interpretation of doctrine--that is, target an intra-religious audience--rather than to justify belief in response to some imagined skeptic or naturalist.
One might detect in this contextualism a resonance with Wittgensteinian approaches to philosophy of religion (especially those inspired by Philosophical Investigations). Clayton concurred with this but he was also somewhat critical of the aversion to theistic arguments common in much Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion:
These ideas of Clayton's have exerted a very large influence on the way I approach philosophy of religion, as well as comparative philosophy and history of philosophy generally. In a way, this also influenced how I read Wittgenstein, although Juliet Floyd, my dissertation director, had a far greater influence on how I read Wittgenstein and think about his relevance to various areas of philosophy. I came to see a partial resemblance between Clayton's goal of clarifying philosophical contexts as well as identifying defensible differences between philosophical traditions and Wittgenstein's pursuit of clarity in addressing philosophical problems. That being said, Wittgenstein's "ethic of perspicuity" as I came to call it in my book, goes beyond the clarification of contexts and ends to consider also how "work on oneself" is relevant to the work of philosophy.
There are many insights to be gained from studying Clayton's work, but a key one for me has been how much philosophers tend to radically underestimate the differences in discursive situations when it comes to reading works from distant social or historical contexts. Following Clayton, when I read works from distant contexts, I look for the ends that would have been the focus of philosophical or religious activity. So, for example, reading the Warring States era Confucian philosopher Xunzi for his philosophy of language, while perhaps inspiring to contemporary philosophers looking for new problems to address, runs the risk of losing Xunzi in the process; attending to Xunzi and the ends that animated the text that bears his name can help one see that his concern for naming was not about finding the best theory of reference but about reestablishing the dao of the sage kings in a time of disorder.
Furthermore, attending to differences in ends of argumentation and discourse (both those that are defensible and those that may be unspoken) is something that is endlessly helpful in cross-cultural situations. A day hardly goes by that I don't note the different ends that structure moments of cross-cultural or inter-religious encounter. Of course, I think about this perpetually in my teaching, both when designing class discussions and when interacting with students in real time. Taking some inspiration from Clayton as well as Wittgenstein, I would now also argue that the use of key terms--e.g., "fideism," "religion," and "philosophy"--also reflects the discursive differences between interlocutors.
Clayton generally held his classes in the evenings at BU and then frequently invited grad students to join him for a drink down at the BU Pub. It was during these times that I learned of his fondness for whiskies, and I suppose it was also during this time that I developed my own appreciation. (In particular, I remember him introducing me to Lagavulin at the BU reception at the AAR.). Today, I am remembering our many conversations about philosophy and religions that took place across seminars, office hours, and of course in the Pub.
I was lucky to get to know Clayton's ideas much more closely than I might have due to my work with Anne Blackburn on preparing Religions, Reasons, and Gods for publication. I read each of the chapters very closely many times over and even had the opportunity to travel to the UK to follow up on some research at the British Library Clayton had drafted for an unfinished chapter on the use of the design argument in early-modern British philosophy and theology. I am very grateful I had that chance as well as the good fortune to be able to study with him so many years ago at BU.
Cheers to you, John!
