Workshop: Argumentation in World Religious Traditions, including Legal Traditions

Organiser: Agnieszka Rostalska, Ghent University

Keynote Speaker: Douglas L. Berger, Leiden University

Formalized approaches to philosophical argumentation, conducted in specific genres of debate, were developed in most World Religious Traditions, and are not at all exclusively distinctive of “Western” philosophical disputation.

This workshop, part of the 4th World Congress on Logic and Religion, explores cross-cultural perspectives on argumentation, specifically, those that governed how different traditions engaged in philosophical debates.

Suggested topics include - but are not limited to - the following:

• Argumentation - the epistemic standards of rational reflection;
• Application of argumentative techniques for understanding religious phenomena;
• Formal approaches to philosophico-religious arguments: especially the frameworks of inference, suppositional reasoning, parallelism, deductive reasoning, logical fallacies, contradictions and debate;
• Techniques for defending/challenging/persuading (including misleading an opponent) in situations of doubt or disagreement, especially: certification, persuasion, refutation, and trickery in debate;
• Comparison – differences and commonalities in argumentative practices across cultures.

The participants will inquire into how the relations between logic and religion are supported by rational inquiry. They will scrupulously examine a wide range of arguments postulated by philosophers and logicians.

Papers with comparative and/or cross-cultural components are particularly welcome.

Submit a one-page abstract by June 17th to [email protected]