Comparative Philosophy of Religion – serie

The medicalization of death is a challenge for all the world's religious and cultural traditions. Death's meaning has been reduced to a diagnosis, a problem, rather than a mystery for humans to ponder. How have religious traditions responded? What resources do they bring to a discussion of death's contemporary dilemmas? This book offers a range of creative and contextual responses from a variety of religious and cultural traditions. It features 14 essays from scholars of different religious and philosophical traditions, who spoke as part of a recent lecture and dialogue series of Drake University’s The Comparison Project. The scholars represent ethnologists, medical ethicists, historians, philosophers, and theologians--all facing up to questions of truth and value in the light of the urgent need to move past a strictly medicalized vision.This volume serves as the second publication of The Comparison Project, an innovative new approach to the philosophy of religion housed at Drake University. The Comparison Project organizes a biennial series of scholar lectures, practitioner dialogues, and comparative panels about core, cross-cultural topics in the philosophy of religion. The Comparison Project stands apart from traditional, theistic approaches to the philosophy of religion in its commitment to religious inclusivity. It is the future of the philosophy of religion in a diverse, global world.

The medicalization of death is a challenge for all the world's religious and cultural traditions. Death's meaning has been reduced to a diagnosis, a problem, rather than a mystery for humans to ponder. How have religious traditions responded? What resources do they bring to a discussion of death's contemporary dilemmas? This book offers a range of creative and contextual responses from a variety of religious and cultural traditions. It features 14 essays from scholars of different religious and philosophical traditions, who spoke as part of a recent lecture and dialogue series of Drake University’s The Comparison Project. The scholars represent ethnologists, medical ethicists, historians, philosophers, and theologians--all facing up to questions of truth and value in the light of the urgent need to move past a strictly medicalized vision.This volume serves as the second publication of The Comparison Project, an innovative new approach to the philosophy of religion housed at Drake University. The Comparison Project organizes a biennial series of scholar lectures, practitioner dialogues, and comparative panels about core, cross-cultural topics in the philosophy of religion. The Comparison Project stands apart from traditional, theistic approaches to the philosophy of religion in its commitment to religious inclusivity. It is the future of the philosophy of religion in a diverse, global world.

This volume provides a comparative philosophical investigation into a particular concept from a variety of angles—in this case, the concept of “miracle.” The text covers deeply philosophical questions around the miracle, with a multiplicity of answers. Each chapter brings its own focus to this multifaceted effort. The volume rejects the primarily western focus that typically dominates philosophy of religion and is filled with particular examples of miracle narratives, community responses, and polemical scenarios across widely varying religious contexts and historical periods. Some of these examples defy religious categorization, and some papers challenge the applicability of the concept “miracle,” which is of western and monotheistic origin. By examining miracles thru a wide comparative context, this text presents a range of descriptive content and analysis, with attention to the audience, to the subjective experiences being communicated, and to the flavor of the narratives that come to surround miracles. This book appeals to students and researchers working in philosophy of religion and science, as well those in comparative religion. It represents, in written form, some of the perspectives and dialogue achieved in The Comparison Project’s 2017–2019 lecture series on miracles. The Comparison Project is an enterprise in comparing a variety of religious voices, allowing them to stand in dialogue.

This volume provides a comparative philosophical investigation into a particular concept from a variety of angles—in this case, the concept of “miracle.” The text covers deeply philosophical questions around the miracle, with a multiplicity of answers. Each chapter brings its own focus to this multifaceted effort. The volume rejects the primarily western focus that typically dominates philosophy of religion and is filled with particular examples of miracle narratives, community responses, and polemical scenarios across widely varying religious contexts and historical periods. Some of these examples defy religious categorization, and some papers challenge the applicability of the concept “miracle,” which is of western and monotheistic origin. By examining miracles thru a wide comparative context, this text presents a range of descriptive content and analysis, with attention to the audience, to the subjective experiences being communicated, and to the flavor of the narratives that come to surround miracles. This book appeals to students and researchers working in philosophy of religion and science, as well those in comparative religion. It represents, in written form, some of the perspectives and dialogue achieved in The Comparison Project’s 2017–2019 lecture series on miracles. The Comparison Project is an enterprise in comparing a variety of religious voices, allowing them to stand in dialogue.

The authors in this volume explore a wide variety of the contemporary approaches to mystical and religious experience to elucidate what religious experience is, in its own terms, and how its practitioners understand it. This anthology features contributions that point out that contemporary studies of consciousness, sociology, hermeneutics, neuroscience, medicine, and other fields, are revealing that there is much more to be said for the inner life of a human’s consciousness than reductionists and behaviorists will allow.This book is one of very few that primarily takes the stance of academic practitioners, explaining their own experience, rather than that of academics trying to explain the phenomena away, as really politics, or sociology, or delusion, or psychological pathology, or literary flights of fancy, or an aberration of any of the other academic fields.  Most of the authors in this volume embrace the task of explaining and analyzing religious experience, mysticism, and the healing power of silence and presence, using the resources of all of the academic disciplines, as appropriate. The essays contained analyze religious, and non-religious, mystical and profoundly personal experiences across several world religions, and in areas such as art and music, as well as in solving personal crises such as family disruption and patriarchal oppression. The authors address the subject matter through analyses of the frequent and destructive failures of language, or just noise, to capture or express the nuances of the inner life of a person. It is this very ineffability of self that renders the spiritual, emotional and interior life of individuals beyond cognition and perception, of the straightforward sorts embraced by most cognitive disciplines. The contributors come from a variety of cross-disciplinary fields to bring forth the possibilities for an intuitive and creative, rich and growing inner life for a human. This text appeals to students, researchers, and practitioners.

The authors in this volume explore a wide variety of the contemporary approaches to mystical and religious experience to elucidate what religious experience is, in its own terms, and how its practitioners understand it. This anthology features contributions that point out that contemporary studies of consciousness, sociology, hermeneutics, neuroscience, medicine, and other fields, are revealing that there is much more to be said for the inner life of a human’s consciousness than reductionists and behaviorists will allow.This book is one of very few that primarily takes the stance of academic practitioners, explaining their own experience, rather than that of academics trying to explain the phenomena away, as really politics, or sociology, or delusion, or psychological pathology, or literary flights of fancy, or an aberration of any of the other academic fields.  Most of the authors in this volume embrace the task of explaining and analyzing religious experience, mysticism, and the healing power of silence and presence, using the resources of all of the academic disciplines, as appropriate. The essays contained analyze religious, and non-religious, mystical and profoundly personal experiences across several world religions, and in areas such as art and music, as well as in solving personal crises such as family disruption and patriarchal oppression. The authors address the subject matter through analyses of the frequent and destructive failures of language, or just noise, to capture or express the nuances of the inner life of a person. It is this very ineffability of self that renders the spiritual, emotional and interior life of individuals beyond cognition and perception, of the straightforward sorts embraced by most cognitive disciplines. The contributors come from a variety of cross-disciplinary fields to bring forth the possibilities for an intuitive and creative, rich and growing inner life for a human. This text appeals to students, researchers, and practitioners.

This contributed volume considers the notions of person and logos from different approaches. Although many treat them separately, this text focuses on their intricated interplay. Drawing upon diverse cultural traditions, including Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Arab sources, this book engages philologists, philosophers, and theologians through captivating analysis that spans from ancient philosophical perspectives to contemporary scholarship. The genesis of this scholarly endeavor owes to a conference held at the Polis Institute in Jerusalem in October 2021, in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University, Notre Dame University, and the University of Hamburg. Out of fifty-seven presentations, fourteen were selected to compose this thought-provoking volume, ensuring a well-structured exposition on the subject.The opening historical overview provides the framework of the volume, and culminates with Beuchot's intriguing proposition of man as an ‘analogical animal’. Subsequent sections explore the concept of logos, tracing its usage in Plato and the Gospel of Saint John, as well as its evolution through scholasticism, modernism, and contemporary thought. Contained are highlights on the notion of person, its development in various languages, and delves into the intricate connections between rationality, speech, and personhood. Metaphysical and personalist approaches are also presented; this book appeals to researchers and scholars in the field.

This contributed volume considers the notions of person and logos from different approaches. Although many treat them separately, this text focuses on their intricated interplay. Drawing upon diverse cultural traditions, including Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Arab sources, this book engages philologists, philosophers, and theologians through captivating analysis that spans from ancient philosophical perspectives to contemporary scholarship. The genesis of this scholarly endeavor owes to a conference held at the Polis Institute in Jerusalem in October 2021, in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University, Notre Dame University, and the University of Hamburg. Out of fifty-seven presentations, fourteen were selected to compose this thought-provoking volume, ensuring a well-structured exposition on the subject.The opening historical overview provides the framework of the volume, and culminates with Beuchot's intriguing proposition of man as an ‘analogical animal’. Subsequent sections explore the concept of logos, tracing its usage in Plato and the Gospel of Saint John, as well as its evolution through scholasticism, modernism, and contemporary thought. Contained are highlights on the notion of person, its development in various languages, and delves into the intricate connections between rationality, speech, and personhood. Metaphysical and personalist approaches are also presented; this book appeals to researchers and scholars in the field.

This book offers a triangular comparative analysis by evaluating three different religious approaches to emptiness. It reveals what emptiness or nothingness mean in different cultural and religious contexts. Further, it assesses each tradition’s emptiness concerning the emptiness of the believer, the emptiness of the world, and perhaps even the (temporary or permanent) emptiness of God.Chapters include perspectives on different religions and though being manifest in different ways within their respective traditions, the Hindi and Buddhist concept of śūnyatā, the Christian concept of divine kenosis, and the Ṣūfī concept of fanā’ share a common denominator: all three signify “emptiness”.  Covered are both sprititual and “mundane” functions of this emptiness that the three religions address. This monograph appeals to students and researchers and reveals that the idea of an “empty” reality that is purified of superfluous fullness are philosophical concepts relevant for all domains of life.

This volume offers a fresh exploration of the enduring dialogue between Confucianism and Buddhism, two traditions that have profoundly shaped East Asian thought. Reviving an exchange long neglected in modern scholarship, it proposes a new comparative approach in the philosophy of religion—a way of understanding how these traditions have long coexisted through seeming opposition, continually shaping, challenging, and enriching each other’s visions of truth and virtue.Contributors examine diverse encounters where Buddhist and Confucian thinkers debated life and death, emotion and morality, self-cultivation and governance, while finding inspiration across traditions. Through discussions of ethics, political order, meditation, music, and humility, the chapters reveal how this dialogue generated creative syntheses that transformed both traditions over time. Together, they show that the interplay between Buddhism and Confucianism remains a living source of insight into the cultivation of virtue and human flourishing today.

This collection of essays is an exercise in comparative philosophy of religion that explores the different ways in which humans express the inexpressible. It brings together scholars of over a dozen religious, literary, and artistic traditions, as part of The Comparison Project's 2013-15 lecture and dialogue series on "religion beyond words."  Specialist scholars first detailed the grammars of ineffability in nine different religious traditions as well as the adjacent fields of literature, poetry, music, and art. The Comparison Project's directors then compared this diverse set of phenomena, offering explanations for their patterning, and raising philosophical questions of truth and value about religious ineffability in comparative perspective. This book is the inaugural publication of The Comparison Project, an innovative new approach to the philosophy of religion housed at Drake University (Des Moines, Iowa, USA). The Comparison Project organizes a biennial series of scholar lectures, practitioner dialogues, and comparative panels about core, cross-cultural topics in the philosophy of religion. Specialist scholars of religion first explore this topic in their religions of expertise; comparativist philosophers of religion then raise questions of meaning, truth, and value about this topic in comparative perspective. The Comparison Project stands apart from traditional approaches to the philosophy of religion in its commitment to religious inclusivity. It is the future of the philosophy of religion in a diverse, global world.