Pragmatic Realism, Religious Truth, and Antitheodicy: On Viewing the World by Acknowledging the Other

Sami Pihlström

doi:10.33134/hup-2

Abstract

As a traditional theological issue and in its broader secular varieties, theodicy remains a problem in the philosophy of religion. In this remarkable book, Sami Pihlstrom provides a novel critical reassessment of the theodicy discourse addressing the problem of evil and suffering. He develops and defends an antitheodicist view, arguing that theodicies seeking to render apparently meaningless suffering meaningful or justified from a ‘God’s-Eye-View’ ultimately rely on metaphysical realism failing to recognize the individual perspective of the sufferer. Pihlstrom thus shows that a pragmatist approach to the realism issue in the philosophy of religion is a vital starting point for a re-evaluation of the problem of theodicy. With its strong positions and precise arguments, the volume provides a new approach which is likely to stimulate discussion in the wider academic world of philosophy of religion. Sami Pihlstrom is professor of philosophy of religion at the University of Helsinki. He has published widely on, e.g., the pragmatist tradition, the problem of realism, and the philosophy of religion. "With this fresh and highly stimulating book on pragmatism, realism and antitheodicy, Sami Pihlstrom consolidates his most important thinking to-date into one coherent account. While demonstrating how his take on pragmatism can have bearing on the debate on realism and anti-realism, fact and value, truth and pluralism, Pihlstrom also brings his position to bear on the failures of theodicy. Bringing added richness to the pragmatist tradition, Pihlstrom fruitfully draws on Kant’s transcendentalism, Levinas’ alterity, along with Wittgenstein’s view of language and its limits. Rich, lucidly written and carefully argued, this book deserves a broad readership." - Professor Espen Dahl, University of Tromso – The Arctic University of Norway

Highlights

The Promise of Pragmatist Philosophy of ReligionHaving already briefly outlined the contents of this volume in the preface, I will in this introductory chapter offer some critical remarks on why I think pragmatism is an increasingly important philosophical approach today—and, possibly, tomorrow— in philosophy generally but in a specific field such as the philosophy of religion in particular
The relevant kind of objectivity lies in our practices of engagement and commitment themselves, in our habits of action embodying certain ways of thinking about ourselves and the world in terms of religious notions such as God, freedom,30 and immortality. This conception of pragmatic realism and objectivity in the philosophy of religion is compatible with certain views on religion as a practice or form of life derived from the later Wittgenstein’s writings, and with a transcendental position we find in the early Wittgenstein: God does not appear in the world; immortality is timelessness, or life in the present moment, instead of any infinite extension of temporal existence; and my will cannot change the facts of the world but ‘steps into the world’ from the outside
No metaphysical theorizing is absolutely independent of ethical valuation, but there is no metaphysically neutral place to stand in any discussions of ethics and value; one of the key arguments the pragmatist may employ here is the observation that the attempt to imagine such a neutral territory of non-contextuality—that is, the metaphysical realist’s idea of a ‘God’s-Eye View’ on the world—is, precisely, something merely imagined, nothing that could ever be genuinely available to us as the kind of finite human beings we are. (In this sense, I see my inquiry as being in the end an investigation of what our human form of life is like, as something like pragmatist philosophical anthropology: cf. Pihlström 2016.)

Summary

Preface vii

I think, both specific and very broad. It addresses a carefully chosen specific topic, i.e., the way in which the (hitherto largely unnoticed) link between theodicism and metaphysical realism can be critically examined from a pragmatist perspective. The basic methodology of pragmatist inquiries into realism, truth, and suffering—into how we ought to view the world, especially in relation to others—is, I suggest, the critical (transcendental) method I will try to make this connection as clear as possible in the chapters that follow

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction

Introduction xxiii

Conclusion

Pragmatism and Critical Philosophy

The Limits of Language and Harmony

Beyond the Theory-Practice Dichotomy

A Note on the Sources of the Chapters