Mikel Burley

A Radical Pluralist Philosophy of Religion (eBook, PDF)

Cross-Cultural, Multireligious, Interdisciplinary

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

This book is a unique introduction to studying the philosophy of religion, drawing on a wide range of cultures and literary sources in an approach that is both methodologically innovative and expansive in its cross-cultural and multi-religious scope.

Employing his expertise in interdisciplinary and Wittgenstein-influenced methods, Mikel Burley draws on works of ethnography and narrative fiction, including Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov and Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman, to critically engage with existing approaches to the philosophy of religion and advocate a radical, pluralist approach. Breaking away from the standard fixation on a narrow construal of theism, topics discussed include conceptions of compassion in Buddhist ethics, cannibalism in mortuary rituals, divine possession and animal sacrifice in Hindu Goddess worship and animism in indigenous traditions.

Original and engaging, Burley's synthesis of philosophical, anthropological and literary elements expands and diversifies the philosophy of religion, providing an essential introduction for anyone interested in studying the radical plurality of forms that religion takes in human life.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bloomsbury UK
• Seitenzahl: 264
• Erscheinungstermin: 23. Januar 2020
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781350098329
• Artikelnr.: 58273480

Autorenporträt

Mikel Burley is Associate Professor of Religion and Philosophy at the University of Leeds, UK. His previous books include Rebirth and the Stream of Life: A Philosophical Study of Reincarnation, Karma and Ethics (2016) and Contemplating Religious Forms of Life: Wittgenstein and D. Z. Phillips (2012). He is also a co-editor of Language, Ethics and Animal Life: Wittgenstein and Beyond (2012).

Inhaltsangabe

List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction Introducing a Radical
Pluralist Approach Chapter Summaries PART I: CRITIQUE AND METHODOLOGY 1.
Religious Pluralisms John Hick's Pluralistic Hypothesis Reductive and
Homogenizing Implications of Hick's Approach John Cobb's Vision of Creative
Transformation Victoria Harrison's Internalist Pluralism A Difficulty with
the Internalist Picture Working with Examples Conceptual Schemes,
Incomprehensibility and Respect Concluding Remarks 2. Radical Plurality and
Critical Description Shortcomings of Contemporary Philosophy of Religion
Expansive Innovations and Residual Limitations Description's Critical
Potential Defamiliarization and Cultural Critique in Anthropology
Thickening Description 3. Narrative Fiction and Philosophical Inquiry
Narrative Fiction and Competing Conceptions of Philosophical Reasoning
Philosophers and Dramatists Narrative Fiction as Philosophy of Religion
Wole Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman Death and the King's Horseman
as Philosophy of Religion Concluding Remarks PART II: EXEMPLIFYING A
RADICAL PLURALIST APPROACH 4. 'Compassion beyond Our Imagination': Radical
Plurality in Buddhist Ethics Varieties of Buddhism and the Rhetoric of
Compassion Images of Familial Love and Abandonment Bodily Sacrifice as
Heroic Virtue 'Lamps of Their Precious Bodies' Transgressive Compassion and
Skilful Means Concluding Remarks 5. 'Ways of Being Human': Cannibalism and
Respecting the Dead Eating Animals but Not Eating People? Varieties of
Cannibalism Wari' Ways of Respecting the Dead Concluding Remarks 6. 'Awe at
the Terrible': Divine Possession, Blood Sacrifice and the Grotesque Body
Preamble: Studying Ritual Philosophically The Grotesque 'Horrific Comedy'
and the Formation of a Ritual Sound-World Kamakhya, Desire and the Womb of
the Goddess Deodhas and Deities Ritualized Transgression and the
Performance of Divine Possession Concluding Remarks 7. 'A Language in Which
to Think of the World': Animism, Philosophy and Indigenous Traditions The
Concept of Animism: Origins, Decline and Revival Animism, Indigeneity and
the Philosophy of Religion Beyond Literalism and Metaphor Demythologizing
the 'Ecologically Noble Savage' Concluding Remarks 8. Conclusions:
Loosening Up Our Lives Attending to Heterogeneity and Thickening
Description Targeting Overgeneralizing Claims and Assumptions Imagining
Philosophy of Religion Differently References Index