CFP: Knowledge, Reality, Transcendence. A Dialogue between East and West

Every culture has its own philosophical and theological perspective on reality and Transcendence and its own peculiar language to express such understanding. In the hermeneutic approach to culturally distinct philosophies and religions, we see profound similarities but also differences between the ways that man conceive of, and relate to, the Divine, to world, to ourselves and to others, both ethically and metaphysically. This requires a rational exercise that is achieved through the act of knowledge, understood as inquiry and interaction with something different from us.

The views of the structure and value of knowledge differ across religious traditions and philosophical systems, where knowledge has been characterized in different ways, as a complex cognitive activity, an existential act and in terms of awareness. We see this difference in various religious and philosophical schools across Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism etc. Interestingly, each of these traditions presumes some form of correspondence or relationship between being (reality) and knowing (knowledge). Therefore the act of knowing is not only what we might call theoretical speculation, but also a way of experiencing the Divine (Ultimate Reality). And here is necessary to clarify how these different religions understand the concept of Transcendence that defines the Ultimate Reality as personal or impersonal. Although there is a limit to the cultural and linguistic boundary that separates Western thought from Asian reflection, in terms of the manner in which the rationality of gnoseology was framed, the purpose is common within the spiritual horizon: existential achieving as salvation (soteria), liberation (mukti) etc.

The intention of this conference and seminar is to analyze the possible convergences or substantive differences between the Christian theology and the oriental philosophies, regarding knowledge, reality, and knowing of divine (absolute) reality. A summary understanding of viewpoints from different traditions can easily slide into misconceptions, or a failure to highlight those doctrinal aspects that actually allow for a comparative analysis. In contrast, a deeper scientific approach to comparison allows for mutual clarification, dialogical appreciation, and therefore a more profound reflection on our own understanding, in the context of different world traditions.

Subthemes:

1. Knowledge (gnosis, vidya, jnana, prajna): philosophical and theological perspectives

2. Transcendence in Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism: philosophical and theological perspectives

3. Knowledge and truth - philosophical and theological perspectives

4. Duality (subject - object) and non-duality in the cognitive experience

5. Negation and apophatism in the comparative horizon: Christianity - Hinduism - Budhism

6. Knowledge and deification (enlightenment, liberation, awareness)

7. Relation between faith and knowledge

8. Religious knowledge and scientific knowledge: complementarity or contrariety?

9. Agnosticism – critique and analysis

10. Reality, consciousness, mind: philosophical perspectives