Beyond Babel : Religion and Linguistic Pluralism

Contents
About the Contributors
A Journey Beyond Babel
1 Babel: From Plurality to Pluralism
2 Going Beyond Babel
3 Specificities
4 Structure and Content
4.1 Religious Limits of Language
4.2 Interreligious and Interlinguistic Encounters
4.3 Religious Identities in Translation
4.4 Scientific Codes and Religious Meanings
4.5 Formal Languages Dealing with Religious Concepts
5 Origin and Future Steps
References
Part I: Religious Limits of Language
Divine Language
1 Divine Linguistic Competence
2 Divine Private Language
3 Divine Language of Thought
4 Concluding Remarks
Appendix
References
Language Without a Code: Islamic Geometry and Modernity
1 Between Theorization and Affect in Islamic Articulations of Geometric Meaning
2 Between Grammar and Ornament in European Articulations of Geometric Meaning
3 Between Rationalists and Spiritualists in Modern Abstraction
4 Between Gallery and God in Exhibitions of the 1970s
5 Between Shrines and Grids in the Art of Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian (1922-2019)
6 Between Grids and Representation in the `Kitsch´ of M. C. Escher (1898-1972)
7 Geometry: Language Without a Code?
References
At the Foot of Babel: Disclosure and Concealment
1 Does Language Clarify or Confuse?
2 The Axial Beyond Becomes Intimate
3 Awareness of the Beyond
4 Transcendent Justice and the Universal Humanum
5 Speaking About the Ineffable Beyond
6 The Primacy of Scriptural Metaphors and Symbols
7 Theology as Rational Reflection on Symbolic Discourse
8 Theology as Freedom
9 Conclusion
References
Ineffability: Its Origins and Problems
1 The Problems of Ineffability
2 The Metaphysics of Ineffability
3 Revealed Language
4 The Theology of ``Effability:´´ A God That Speaks
5 Philosophy in Aid of Theology
6 Interreligious Dialogue
References
Would We Speak If We Did Not Have to Die?
1 Introduction
2 Speaking and Unavailability
3 Prayer as a Borderline Case of Language
4 The Linguistic Form of Prayer
References
Part II: Interreligious and Interlinguistic Encounters
Interreligious Empathy and Linguistic Plurality
1 Introduction
2 Interreligious Empathy
3 Sympathy
4 Experience
5 Imagination
6 Conclusion
Bibliography
A Sākta Theory on Religions in a Linguistic Pluralism
1 The Devī Mahātmyam
2 Rahasyam Trayam: The Three Secrets
3 Samai-Vyai: Concurring Unity-Diversity
4 Conclusion
Bibliography
On the Power of Imperfect Words: An Inquiry into the Revelatory Power of a Single Hindu Verse
1 An Understated Vision
2 Reading with the Tradition
3 Seeing Indirectly
Bibliography
Tiruviruttam
Other References
On the Oscillation Model and Its Logic
1 Introduction
2 Examples of Oscillation: Interreligious Meetings
3 Other Examples of Oscillation
4 Logical Systems Inspired by the Examples
References
Part III: Religious Identities in Translation
Just as Good as the Original? Establishing the Septuagint as Sacred
References
Multilingualism and the Early Years of the Nadwat al-`Ulama Movement: Navigating Linguistic Needs, Muslim Identity, and Coloni...
1 Sayyid Muhammad `Ali Mongiri: A Brief Introduction
2 Muslim Educational Movements in Colonial India
3 The Founding of Nadwat al-`Ulama
4 English
5 Arabic
6 Urdu
7 Conclusion
Bibliography
``Expression to Our Christmas Feeling´´: Schleiermacher´s Translation of Religion into the Bourgeois Family
1 Privatization, Feminization, and Familiarization
2 Types of Ambiguities
3 Limits of Conversation
4 Conclusion: The Many Languages of Religion
References
Testimony, Authorless Text, and Tradition: Toward Hermeneutic Pluralism
1 Dis-Cours de Testimony: A Preamble
2 Salient Features of the Mīmāsā Theory of Language: Apaurueya (Authorlessness)
2.1 Autpattika
3 Semiological Model: Cours de la langue v la parole
4 Ramifications for Thoughts on Tradition and Authority
References
Part IV: Scientific Codes and Religious Meanings
Gersonides - Translating Divinity Within the Limits of Knowledge
1 Introduction
2 Gersonides´ Contributions
3 The Matter of Truth
4 Sciences and the Divine
5 Gersonides´ Mathematics, and the Languages
6 The most Beautiful, the Song of Songs
7 Gersonides´ Method and the Immortality
8 Conclusion
Bibliography
The Revival of Alchemy: The Cumulative Creation of a Tradition
1 Introduction
2 The Tradition of Alchemy: An Overview
3 The Revival of Alchemy in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century
3.1 The Merge Between Science and Occultism
3.2 A Reformulation of Alchemy
4 A Tension Between Paradigms
5 The Strategy of Hermeneutic Flexibility
6 Alchemy as a Cumulative Creation of Past and Present
References
Credition and Complex Networks: Understanding the Structure of Belief as a Way of Facilitating Interreligious Dialogue
1 Introduction. Religions in a Linguistic Pluralism
2 Credition
3 Using Artificial Systems to Improve Our Understanding of Belief
4 A Model for the Structure of Belief: Complex Networks
5 Orientation Towards a Goal
6 Openness
7 Complexity
8 Nonlinear Phenomena
9 Emergence
10 Self-Organization
11 Adaptation
12 Understanding Belief for Better Religious Dialogue: Directions for Future Research
References
Human Dignity After the Human
1 Introduction
2 Varieties of Dignity
2.1 Posthuman Dignity
2.2 Bioconservative Dignity
3 Being Human
3.1 Embodiment
3.2 Risk
3.3 Relationality
4 Common Ground?
References
Part V: Formal Languages Dealing with Religious Concepts
A Simplified Variant of Gödel´s Ontological Argument
1 Introduction
2 Simplified Variant
3 Discussion
Appendix: Sources of Conducted Experiments
References
Religion Plurality and the Logic of the Concept of God
1 Introduction
2 A Theory of Ideal Concepts
3 An Idealistic R-Theory of the Concept of God
4 A Possible Worlds Approach to the Concept of God
5 Conclusion
References
Two in One. What the Logic of Christology Can Teach Us
1 Introduction
2 What Is Conjunctive Paraconsistency?
2.1 What Is a True Contradiction?
2.2 The Conjunction Problem
2.3 Truth Is the Problem, Truth Is the Solution
2.3.1 The Conception of Truth
2.3.2 The Holiday of Negation
3 What the Athanasian Creed Teaches Us
3.1 Two in One
3.2 The Assumptio Humanitatis
3.3 Christological Anthropology and Its Logic
3.4 A Hypothesis
4 Summary and Concluding Remarks
References
The Trinitarian Doctrine in the Language of Category Theory
1 Introduction
2 Some Elements of the Trinitarian Theology
3 Basic Notions in Category Theory
3.1 Categories
3.2 Discrete and Indiscrete Categories
3.3 Isomorphic Objects
3.4 Initial and Terminal Objects
3.5 Products
3.6 Functors
3.7 Natural Transformation
3.8 Equivalence of Categories
4 Categorical Approaches to the Trinity
4.1 First Approach: 1θ
4.2 Second Approach: 2´θ
4.3 Third Approach: 3´θ
4.3.1 Filioque
4.3.2 The Holy Spirit as Passive Spiration
4.4 Equivalence of Our Approaches
4.5 Divine Simplicity
5 Final Remarks
Bibliography
Index