Introduction

Abstract

The volume in your hands presents a number of essays on different facets of philosophy in the context of Eastern Christianity. That this is so, however, gives rise to a number of questions. What, for example, is meant by the term ‘Eastern Christianity’? How is philosophy in relation to Eastern Christianity different to philosophy in the West? And why should we dedicate our intellectual energies to understanding it? It is not as if the Christian world would be unaware of a certain diversity of approaches to philosophy; those familiar with theological history, meanwhile, will surely know that the earliest developments in doctrine come about as a result of apologists making sense of Christian claims using the language and methods of Greek philosophy. For all that, however, there is a heavy bias—at least among anglophone philosophers—to assuming that the philosophical enterprise is an inherently Western one, and that whatever conclusions might be drawn as part of that enterprise must inherently correspond with customary Western Christian conclusions. So, this volume is an attempt to redress the matter, and bring to the English-speaking world’s attention a sample of the sort of thinking going on in the Christian East; and, importantly, to bring this thinking into conversation with contemporary philosophy.