Pragmatic Pluralism and the Problem of God

Conclusion

{ 157 } B In the previous chapters I have argued for the pragmatic need to adopt, antireductionistically and antiessentialistically, different perspectives on issues in the philosophy of religion: Kantian (the postulates of practical reason); Jamesian (the ethical grounding of metaphysics and theology); Deweyan (naturalism, the emancipation of “the religious” from supernaturalism); neopragmatist (integrating these perspectives with Wittgensteinian influences); and others. I have not attempted to interpret these positions in any historical detail; I have, by “philosophizing historically,” examined their relevance to pragmatist philosophy of religion today. Moreover, Jamesian pluralism, I have suggested, is a (not the) metaperspective urging us to accommodate all these (and other) historically contextualized voices in our on-going attempts to understand religion and religiosity better. These voices deserve to be carefully listened to in contemporary philosophical reflections on these matters. Conclusion 158 Conclusion Summarizing My Arguments The findings of the previous chapters can be summarized as follows. First, I have argued for a certain kind of Kantian pragmatism, seeking to integrate the pragmatic and the transcendental—as well as, on the basis of this integration, the ethical and the metaphysical (both generally and in relation to the philosophy of religion, in particular). Secondly, I have suggested that pragmatist philosophers of religion should follow Dewey in embracing nonreductive naturalism, against any dogmatic supernaturalisms (but also against militantly atheist attempts to judge all religious views irrational). Thirdly, especially in my discussions of neopragmatist philosophy of religion, I have emphasized the need to take normativity seriously. Philosophy of religion is a matter of normative assessment of our philosophical attempts to deal with religious issues (or “problems of religion,” as Zackariasson puts it; cf. chapter 3). Fourthly, my defense of pragmatist philosophy of religion has been a defense of a way of thinking about religion beyond dichotomies. The key dichotomies I have rejected are the ones between evidentialism and fideism and between realism and antirealism, both of which have shaped contemporary approaches to the philosophy of religion in unfruitful ways. I have proposed an Aufhebung—a critical overcoming—of these dichotomies on the basis of Jamesian pragmatism, in particular. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I have also tried to show why pragmatist philosophy of religion must not only go beyond these dichotomies but beyond any theodicist picture of “justifying evil.” The problem of evil has thus turned out to be a true test case for the pragmatist position developed in more general philosophy of religion. After lengthy inquiries into these pragmatist ways of examining religion , it is time to consider some more metalevel issues. One question not yet considered in this volume is the old one concerning the very nature of religion. What is religion? I did not begin with this question, because I do not think that pragmatist inquiry can start with any definitions purporting to provide the essence of the phenomenon inquired into. I am not providing a definition to conclude with, either. But I want to return to the question and I hope to be able to illuminate it by way of conclusion. Conclusion 159 Religion and Pseudoreligion It is a commonplace that defining religion is a very difficult, if not hopeless , task. Scholars of comparative religion, for example, seldom propose any explicit definitions; nor do philosophers of religion. I am not going to propose anything like that, either. My aims are once again located at the metalevel: what I am interested in is the very possibility of drawing the, or even a, boundary between religion and nonreligion, particularly between religion and what I call “pseudoreligion” (or what may as well be called “superstition,” and what may also sometimes come close to “hypocrisy”). I want to examine whether attempts to draw such a boundary are committed to essentialism, namely, to a view according to which certain essential “religion-making” properties are required for a given activity or way of thinking to be religious, or to be accurately describable as religious . If such an essentialist view were true, an explicit definition of religion would be a meaningful goal, and its possibility would be a necessary presupposition of any normative discussion of religion and religiosity. If, however, no essentialism is invoked, or if essentialism is rejected as a hopelessly outdated form of metaphysics, then the question arises whether any religion versus pseudoreligion (or religion versus superstition ) boundary can be drawn at all. This issue takes an especially interesting shape in the Wittgensteinian tradition in the philosophy of religion...