Seeking Truth and Meaning: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Religion and Philosophy

Dear Colleagues,

In his small but substantial text, Philosophy and Theology, John D. Caputo offers a concise but clever commentary on the conjunction “and” by specifically addressing what he considers to be the tensive polysemy inherent in that integrating word. For him, that polysemy proscribes simply translating the conjunction homogeneously as a facile semantic adhesive joining two similar or related concepts. In other words, his injunction against that reductionistic interpretation arises from a belief that the conjunction “and” may always disguise a disjunctive potential intimating that the concepts conjoined by the copulative may not only be allies but adversaries as well. This semantic coefficient of uncertainty demands what Jacques Derrida would term a “negotiation” between the plausibly divergent readings of the word—a “shuttling” to and fro between undecidable meanings that may never be absolutely defined. As a result, “and” may communicate conceptual collegiality between correlative ideas (e.g., faith and reason), and/or it may signal conflictual competition between antagonistic terms (e.g., Pro-Choice and Pro-Life).

I note Caputo’s radical hermeneutics of “and” because it directly pertains to the proposed title of this Special Issue of Religions. If one examines that title, one will quickly recognize the repetition of only one word—the conjunction “and,” “Seeking Truth and Meaning: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Religion and Philosophy.” “Truth,” “meaning,” “religion,” and “philosophy”—significant ideas all paired through the power of the conjunction. Does one coordinate truth and meaning as relatable ideas, or does one isolate them as incompatible notions? For example, may one define truth in a broader manner that allows for a transcendence of a narrow correspondence or consistency, thereby allowing for a filiation between truth and meaning in an existential sense? Or must one choose between truth as adequation and meaning as emotive, that is, as hostiles within a battle for the empirical? Likewise, does one assume a comparability between philosophy and religion (since both disciplines commit to a desire for truth and meaning), something akin to a Socratic aspiration for wisdom? Or does one disassociate philosophy and religion as incommensurable language games connected only by category mistakes in that the former maintains a critical perspective while the latter constantly struggles to elude perfunctory superstition?

The above questions actually identify the desired content sought for this Special Issue of Religions. Contributions are coveted that specifically engage in various interpretations of what “truth” and “meaning” may mean, as well as how one may reconcile or rupture the consistencies and inconsistencies between philosophy and religion. The scope of such investigative essays broadens across disciplinary lines, not only with reference to “formal” disciplines in university—science, history, anthropology, or sociology, to name a few—but also moves across genres and activities—art, poetry, or morality, to name a few others. Essays may seek to synthesize the various pairs of concepts or to acknowledge Caputo’s inchoate disjunction within the conjunction and critically differentiate them. Essays might focus on hermeneutical issues relevant to truth as manifestation or to sense as existential significance or to fiction and narrative as profoundly suggestive of the differentiation and integration of philosophy and religion. Importantly, of course, as stated quite explicitly in the title and reiterated above, essays may generate from any discipline or from any cultural manifestation of the human desire for purpose, thereby providing the “interdisciplinary perspectives” preferred for this Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. B. Keith Putt
Guest Editor

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• truth
• meaning
• philosophy
• religion
• interdisciplinary perspectives