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Document Details :

Title: Reasons and Values of the Heart in a Pluralistic World
Subtitle: Toward a Contemplative Phenomenology for Interreligious Dialogue
Author(s): SOBERT SYLVEST, John , YONG, Amos
Journal: Studies in Interreligious Dialogue
Volume: 20    Issue: 2   Date: 2010   
Pages: 170-193
DOI: 10.2143/SID.20.2.2058666

Abstract :
Interreligious dialogue often proceeds with a consideration of shared values and an exploration at the level of spiritual practice and experience. This article looks at some of the hermeneutical dynamics that are involved in attempts to establish shared axiological visions between religions and suggests that this approach remains fruitful if we recognize that our shared religious experience is nondiscursive and nonpropositional and if we appeal to our participatory imagination more than to our conceptual mapmaking. Still, we recognize that, while our interpretive stances go beyond the propositional, they certainly do not proceed without propositions. But we might find a way forward if we proceed in a manner that, rather than being robustly metaphysical, is vaguely phenomenological. We offer a semiotic, heuristic approach in the form of various conceptual placeholders that may foster the rudiments of philosophic, theological, and even religious engagement in interreligious dialogue. Our proposal is grounded in a Christian theological vision that is both pervasively incarnational and profusely pneumatological.

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