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Protected: Alla Alaghbri: Waḥdat al-Wujūd in Epistemological light: Rationalism, Mysticism, the Problem of the Stage Beyond Reason in Al-Bukhārī’s Faḍīḥat al-mulḥidīn — paper
Alla Alaghbri: Waḥdat al-Wujūd in Epistemological light: Rationalism, Mysticism, the Problem of the Stage Beyond Reason in Al-Bukhārī’s Faḍīḥat al-mulḥidīn.
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Alla Allagbhri
PhD Student, Divinity School
Waḥdat al-Wujūd in Epistemological light: Rationalism, Mysticism, the Problem of the Stage Beyond Reason in Al-Bukhārī’s Faḍīḥat al-mulḥidīn.
TUESDAY, February 4th, 5 PM, Swift 207
The workshop will consist of a presentation followed by discussion and Q&A. The paper to be read in advance can be accessed here (password: “being”). We hope to see you there!
Abstract:
The problem of Being (Wujūd) particularly God’s Being and its relationship with the existence of everything other Him has a central place in Islamic philosophical theology. The problem generated a range of rich discussions concerning issues of ontology and metaphysics more generally. What is interesting is that the problem of Being was also a sight in which problems of epistemology were investigated. This was especially the case between mystics of a philosophical bent (otherwise called philosophical Sufis) and rational theologians. In this paper, I investigate some of these epistemological problems through an analysis of a treatise written by the rational theologian, ʿAlāʾ Al-Dīn Al-Bukhāri (d.1438). My focus will be on the philosophical Sufi’s idea of a stage beyond reason, that is, an epistemological terrain in which the basic propositions of reason, such as the law of non-contradiction, are witheld in light of direct mystical experience. I will explore the idea’s conceptual history and al-Bukhārī’s deep suspicion of it. Along the way, I will draw some conclusions about the epistemic commitments of rational theology and the sources of the philosophical Sufi’s dissatisfaction with it. Hosted by the Philosophy of Religions Workshop at the University of Chicago.
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The Workshop on the Philosophy of Religions is committed to being a fully accessible and inclusive workshop. Please contact Workshop Coordinators Taryn Sue (tarynsue@uchicago.edu) and Yeti Kang (hkang01@uchicago.edu) in order to make any arrangements necessary to facilitate your participation in workshop events.
Nathan Mulder Bunce: Specters and the Image
Nathan Mulder Bunce
Ph.D. Candidate, University College Dublin
Specters and the Image: Ethical Injunction as Apparition of the Inapparent
TUESDAY, December 3, 5:00 PM, Swift 207
The workshop will consist of a short presentation, followed by discussion and Q&A. We will focus on a pre-circulated paper, which can be accessed here (password: “Specters”).
Abstract
By now, which is to say since Martin Heidegger and Jacques Derrida, denunciations of the ‘metaphysics of presence’ are widespread. This context demands a radical rethinking of the image or appearance for a conception which does not rely on the value of presence to support its meaning. How should the image be understood in the wake of the disappearance of this grounding support? Does the significance of this uprooting of the image transform the image into the simulacrum? Drawing on Derrida’s Specters of Marx, I suggest the logic of the ghost—a hauntology—offers a conception of the image adequate to the demands of the post-metaphysical situation without falling into the nihilism of simulacra. Images, and more generally phenomena, as specters reverse the process of total depletion through the ethical injunction, calling us to reinvest the significance of images without certain knowledge. To be sure, this reinvestment requires interpretation, but an interpretation deprived of its end and without hope for itself. This unassured end would constitute the chance, which is the risk and promise, of justice.
Hosted by the Philosophy of Religions Workshop at the University of Chicago.
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The Workshop on the Philosophy of Religions is committed to being a fully accessible and inclusive workshop. Please contact Workshop Coordinators Taryn Sue (tarynsue@uchicago.edu) or Yeti Kang (hkang01@uchicago.edu) in order to make any arrangements necessary to facilitate your participation in workshop events.
Protected: Nathan Mulder Bunce, paper
Rafael Aguirre Schultz: Living and Dying with Montaigne and Zhuangzi
Rafael Aguirre Schultz
MA Student, UChicago Divinity
Living and Dying with Montaigne and Zhuangzi
TUESDAY, November 19, 5:00 PM, Swift 207
The workshop will consist of a short presentation, followed by discussion and Q&A. We will focus on a pre-circulated paper, which can be accessed here (password: “Living”).
Abstract
It is difficult, at first glance, to see how the philosophies of Zhuangzi (c. 369-286 BCE) and Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) might intersect. On the one hand, there is Zhuangzi, the quasi-mythic Daoist sage whose eponymous work seeks to constantly decenter the perspective of its reader. On the other, there is Montaigne, the archetypal bon vivant and early-modern skeptic who claimed to know no subject better than himself. The two appear incommensurate. My claim is not only that these two share a certain philosophical disposition. Rather, I argue that Montaigne, in his attempt to faithfully depict passing, rather than being, serves as a resource for the ‘philosophy of living’ which the classicist and sinologist François Jullien has variously sought in his ‘detour’ through ancient Chinese thought.
Of particular comparative importance are the following elements. First, in both Montaigne and Zhuangzi one finds a movement away from a certain kind of skepticism towards an identification of the subject with a processual conception of nature. This affords both thinkers, not an indifference towards death, but instead a way of affirming it as necessary. Second, both Montaigne and Zhuangzi reject that entities have discrete essences, and instead argue that indication operates as a function of differentiation. For these reasons I nominate Montaigne’s thought as a resource for anti-ontological thinking within the Western philosophical tradition. In a manner which alienates him somewhat from others within his own intellectual tradition, Montaigne eschews ontological inquiry in favor of an approach to life as it is lived; not as mere being as opposed to non-being, but rather as movement, passing-through, never-being-the-same.
Hosted by the Philosophy of Religions Workshop at the University of Chicago.
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The Workshop on the Philosophy of Religions is committed to being a fully accessible and inclusive workshop. Please contact Workshop Coordinators Taryn Sue (tarynsue@uchicago.edu) or Yeti Kang (hkang01@uchicago.edu) in order to make any arrangements necessary to facilitate your participation in workshop events.
Protected: Rafael Aguirre Schultz, paper
Protected: Seth Auster-Rosen, paper
Seth Auster-Rosen: Doth He Refute Well or ‘Protest Too Much’?: Mikyö Dorje’s Critique of Dolpopa’s Zhentong-Madhyamaka Philosophy
[PR WS] NEXT TUESDAY: Seth Auster-Rosen at the Philosophy of Religions Workshop
Seth Auster-RosenPhD Candidate, University of Chicago Divinity SchoolDoth He Refute Well or ‘Protest Too Much’?: Mikyö Dorje’s Critique of Dolpopa’s Zhentong-Madhyamaka PhilosophyTUESDAY, November 12, 5:00 PM, Swift 207The workshop will consist of a short presentation, followed by discussion and Q&A. We will focus on a pre-circulated paper, which will be circulated this Friday, November 8.In his Praise to Dependent Arising, Karmapa Mikyö Dorje (1507-1544), eighth reincarnate hierarch of the powerful Karma Kagyü order of Tibetan Buddhism, critiques the philosophy of Künkhyen Dolpopa (1292-1361), luminary of the rival Jonang order. Dolpopa’s Madhyamaka philosophical view (often referred to as Zhentong-Madhyamaka) is that the ‘kingdom’ of ultimate reality is totally separate from and opposite to the world of conventional appearances. Duckworth (2015), noting the resonance between Dolpopa’s position and the metaphysical dualism of thinkers like Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and Leibniz, refers to it as a “Buddhist theo-logic.” But is that really right, or are critics like Mikyö Dorje–and Duckworth along with them–missing something fundamental to Dolpopa’s position? In my paper, an article-length distillation of the first part of my dissertation, I first sketch out the key points of Dolpopa’s view and then delve into Mikyö Dorje’s arguments against it in the Praise. Finally, I return to Dolpopa’s writing to highlight a crucial omission in Mikyö Dorje’s critique, and draw conclusions as to why so many critics like Mikyö Dorje mishandle Dolpopa’s philosophy in the way they do.Hosted by the Philosophy of Religions Workshop at the University of Chicago.
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The Workshop on the Philosophy of Religions is committed to being a fully accessible and inclusive workshop. Please contact Workshop Coordinators Taryn Sue (tarynsue@uchicago.edu) or Yeti Kang (hkang01@uchicago.edu) in order to make any arrangements necessary to facilitate your participation in workshop events.
Sylwia Wilczewska, Between the Worlds: Suspending Judgement on Religion
Sylwia Wilczewska
Researcher, Polish Academy of Sciences
Between the Worlds: Suspending Judgement on Religion
TUESDAY, October 29, 5:00 PM, Swift 207
The workshop will consist of a short talk, followed by discussion and Q&A.
Abstract
Within religious epistemology, agnosticism has usually been discussed with reference to the existence of God of classical theism; it is only recently that J. S. Schellenberg’s so-called hiddenness argument for the non-existence of such God in the context of Schellenberg’s ultimist stance (cf. Schellenberg 2015) has contributed to opening a debate on agnosticism in a broader sense, taking into consideration many possible concepts of God or the Absolute. The aim of my paper is to discuss the possibility of agnosticism in an even broader sense of suspending judgement on what religion to embrace – in short, “agnosticism about religions” – with the focus on its spiritual consequences. With this goal in mind, I will ask: (1) Is agnosticism about what religion to embrace the same thing as agnosticism about what religion is true? If not, what does the difference lay in? (2) Is agnosticism about what religion to embrace the same thing as agnosticism about which existing religion to embrace? If not, how does it differ from it? (3) How does agnosticism about religions relate to different forms of agnosticism about God or the Absolute as broadly understood – e.g. Schellenberg’s ultimism (cf. Schellenberg 2016) or John Hick’s belief in the Real (cf. Hick 1989)? (4) Does agnosticism about what religion to embrace entail agnosticism about whether to embrace a religion? If yes, how does it differ from universal philosophical agnosticism – agnosticism about any philosophical claim? (5) What are the practical (existential, moral, spiritual) consequences of agnosticism about religions? How do they differ in different cases and what factors underlie the differences? Does the concept of practical agnosticism as spiritual inquiry (cf. Draper 2002) or apophatic spiritual mindset (cf. Kenny 2004) apply to agnosticism about religions? In order to provide a (tentative) answer to these questions, rather than employing any notion of the essence of religion as such, I will make use of (a.) Ronald W. Hepburn’s idea of “agnostic imaginative slant” (Hepburn 1958), broadened so as to be applicable to religions other than Christianity, (b.) the concept of existential perspective as developed by religious epistemologists inspired by late Wittgenstein, like D. Z. Phillips (1981) or, more recently, Blake McAllister (2018) and Chris Tweedt (2022).
Works cited: P. Draper, “Seeking But Not Believing: Confessions of a Practicing Agnostic”, in: D. Howard-Snyder, P. K. Moser (eds.), Divine Hiddenness: New Essays, OUP 2002, pp. 197-2014; R. W. Hepburn, Christianity and Paradox: Critical Studies in Twentieth-Century Theology, Pegasus 1958; B. McAllister, “The Perspective of Faith: Its Nature and Epistemic Implications”, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 92, Iss. 4, 2018, pp. 515-533; Ch. Tweedt, “The Perspectival Account of Faith”, Religious Studies, Vol. 59, Iss. 4, 2022, pp. 635-650; D. Z. Phillips, The Concept of Prayer, The Seabury Press 1981; J. Hick, An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent, Macmillan Press 1989; J. L. Schellenberg, The Hiddenness Argument: Philosophy’s New Challenge to Belief in God, OUP 2015; J. L. Schellenberg, “God for All Time: From Theism to Ultimism”, in: A. A. Buckareff, Y. Nagasawa (eds.), Alternative Concepts of God: Essays on the Metaphysics of the Divine, OUP 2016, pp. 164-177; A. Kenny, The Unknown God: Agnostic Essays, Continuum 2004.
Hosted by the Philosophy of Religions Workshop at the University of Chicago.
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The Workshop on the Philosophy of Religions is committed to being a fully accessible and inclusive workshop. Please contact Workshop Coordinators Taryn Sue (tarynsue@uchicago.edu) or Yeti Kang (hkang01@uchicago.edu) in order to make any arrangements necessary to facilitate your participation in workshop events.