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“Unity of Religious History” and “Universal Self-Consciousness”: Leading Concepts or Mere Horizons on the Way Towards a World Theology?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2011
Extract
It is a familiar fact that it is difficult for revolutionary “worldviews” to gain recognition and acceptance. The most successful way to overcome this problem was termed by Hegel Aufhebung. In the ideal case envisaged by Hegel, Aufhebung says that the new “worldview,” or the theory which articulates that worldview, reconstructs within itself elements of the old perspective on the world, together with a critique of that perspective. However, the preservation of old worldviews in new theories can also take a more straightforward form. Only rarely do new worldviews emerge thoroughly developed. As a rule they continue to employ numerous leading concepts which belong to the older tradition. Only after a relatively long period of time are the old leading concepts replaced or reformulated—or, on the other hand, is the new theory withdrawn. We are well acquainted with such a course of events. But that does not prevent us from living de facto with theoretical orientations towards the world which represent mixed forms of old and new theories. We simultaneously employ new perspectives and old observations, new forms of thought and old theses. We think that we can enjoy the new cake and still eat the old one. This situation usually leads us to form an unrealistic picture of the power of the newer worldview. We fail to recognize the fact that new worldviews, as a rule, substantially overextend their credit. The dangers of granting too much credit to these new conceptions are seldom seen clearly and are often underestimated.
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- Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1988
References
1 Smith, Wilfred Cantwell, Towards a World Theology: Faith and the Comparative History of Religion (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981) esp. 49–50, 54.Google Scholar
2 These expressions appear particularly in the first pan of the book.
3 This holds true not only for the notion of “process” and its more detailed characterization, but also for interest in orders which are transindividual and yet concretely lived, for the imputation of a reality structured in pluralistic ways, for the usage of the words “nexus” and “event,” and for the criticism of “bifurcation.” This, however, does not mean that Smith takes over Whitehead's theory.
4 Cf. Parsons, Talcott, “Field Theory and System Theory: With Special Reference to the Relations between Psychobiological and Social Systems.” in Offer, Daniel and Freedman, Daniel X., eds., Modern Psychiatry and Clinical Research: Essays in Honor of Roy R. Grinker. Sr. (New York: Basic Books, 1972) 3–16. See also the texts mentioned on p. 3.Google Scholar
5 See Goodman, Nelson, The Structure of Appearance (3d ed.; Dordrecht/Boston: Reidel, 1977);CrossRefGoogle Scholar idem. Ways of Worldmaking (Hassocks: Harvester, 1978).Google Scholar
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9 Lang, David Marshall, The Wisdom of Balahvar: A Christian Legend of the Buddha (London: Allen & Unwin; New York: Macmillan, 1957)Google Scholar; idem, The Balavariani: A Tale from the Christian East Translated from the Old Georgian (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966).Google Scholar
10 In order to support Smith's thesis under these conditions one would have to maintain that the unity of religious history and a unity of “the whole history” converge.
11 Cf. Whitehead, Alfred North, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (corrected ed. by Griffin, D. R. and Sherbume, D. W.; New York: Free Press, 1978) 210.Google Scholar
12 Certainly, the contrasting of person-to-person contacts with person-object relations is very plausible. Concepts like I-Thou, I-it, subject-subject, and subject-object have had a history of great effect. However, these approaches are insufficient for the determination of objectivity.
13 This is obviously more easily demanded than clearly projected. Whoever occupies himself or herself with questions of communication techniques and of tact—not to mention the problems of penetrating their logic—experiences the difficulties of forming even mutual boundary perceptions between our own perspectives and those of others. But even in these boundary perceptions a nonobjectifying, mutual taking over, and attuning of perspectives has not been reached. As soon as we leave the realms of concrete encounters and of communication which has become routine and familiar, we quickly find ourselves in an intellectual no-man's-land with regard to the planning of concrete communication. It is unforeseeable how others' ways of perceiving the world are supposed to become accessible to us without religious, philosophical, and popular-cultural objectifications, and much help from “la raison du coeur.”.
14 Here I follow the theory of self-consciousness developed in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, and Dieter Henrich's systematic reformulation of its central argumentation. Cf. Henrich, D., Selbstverhältnisse. Gedanken und Auslegungen zu den Gnundlagen der klassischen deutschen Philosophie (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1982) 178ff.Google Scholar
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16 Cf. ibid., 180–81.
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19 Mutatis mutandis, also secular conversation partners, bearers of political authority, mass media, etc.
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