A01=Garth Hallett
Author_Garth Hallett
Category=QRAB
Category=QRAC
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
Product details
- ISBN 9780826446329
- Publication Date: 21 Oct 2010
- Publisher: Continuum Publishing Corporation
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
The claim has repeatedly been made, and has often been contested, that a single transcendent being is present or active in all of the world's major religions. In this view, names such as "God," "Allah," "nirvana," "Vishnu," and "Brahman" all refer to the same transcendent reality. Absent from the debate and here provided is a serious study of such claims in the light of the most pertinent philosophical literature, namely that concerning questions of identity and individuation. Of necessity, the terms that the claims employ are very general and abstract: the world's religions, it is said, all refer to the same "thing," "being," or "reality." Although analogy, rightly understood, can back the transcendent extension of descriptive expressions such as "wise," "good," and "powerful," it cannot do likewise for expressions such as "one," "same," and "many." So pluralists' identity claims appear empty. Hallett scrutinizes the soundness of this critique, its broad implications, and the possibility of replacing empty identity claims with suitable parables or comparisons.
Garth Hallett, SJ, is formerly the Dean of the College of Philosophy and Letters at Saint Louis University, USA. He has written fifteen books, including Identity and Mystery in Themes of Christian Faith (Ashgate, 2005), Priorities and Christian Ethics (CUP, 2008) and Linguistic Philosophy: The Central Story (SUNY, 2008).
