Tag: participating scholars

I research on Religion, Philosophy, and Politics, with much of my work being in the Philosophy of Religion, concerning God’s existence. I am interested in global-critical Philosophy of Religion, as my ongoing research finds that alternatives to the classical theism so dominant in the field, such as pantheism and panentheism, found globally, are more evidentially probable.

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My work at the intersection of religious studies, metaphysics, and analytic philosophy of language has made at least one thing very clear: words matter. I mean this quite literally; words are materializations of particular ways of being in the world and they materialize those ways of being in the future. Our categories and our judgments are mutually reinforcing. The fact that most philosophy of religion textbooks revolve around questions of doctrine and argument, for example, has everything to do with its Christian-European historical center of gravity. As a result, philosophers of religion have been overwhelmingly preoccupied with the category of “belief” and have thereby imported the modernist metaphysical assumptions it carries with it about what it means to be human and to be a subject. Towards decentering this traditional vocabulary, my local goal in pursuing global-critical philosophy of religion is to expand the categories by which we ask and answer our discipline-defining questions. My broader goal is to render the development of critical consciousness inseparable from the vocation of humanization.

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I am committed to a global, diverse, equitable, and just philosophy and strive to engage more voices in the philosophical discourse. To this end, I have developed the Multi-Entry Approach to philosophy, which is based on a fourth-person philosophy. A philosophy for humanity has to be fashioned by humanity. It has to be inclusive and to emphasize an ethics of understanding over an ethics of judgment. This approach has to be two-pronged: First we need to expand the communities and traditions that are represented in our philosophical approach. The areas of, e.g., philosophy of religion and philosophy of mind cannot solely be driven by anglophone discourses. Second, we need to critically rethink our philosophical approach and acknowledge as well as retreat from methods and methodologies that are grounded in hegemonic thinking. Based on my reading of philosophies around the world, I have critically engaged the so-called first- and third-person approaches and developed a fourth-person approach. This approach moves away from the grand narrative traditionally advanced in philosophy departments and suggests a creative multilogue that includes and engages as many approaches, narratives, and ways of thinking as possible.

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I co-launched the global-critical philosophy of religion seminar for the American Academy of Religion in 2015, and have co-directed it since then. My interests in GCPR thus far include (1) rethinking the categories for global PR, which I do in the textbook, (2) carrying out ongoing “exercises” in comparative PR, which I do through the lecture series and Springer publications, and (3) engaging in the comparative study of “ineffability discourses,” which will be the subject of my next monograph. My monograph sketches a method and theory for comparative PR, and I am currently completing an undergraduate textbook in GCPR.

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My research has taken me across the world to the study of Advaita Vedānta, an Indic philosophy of non-dualism that claims that the self is of the nature of infinite, immutable, immortal, universal consciousness. I have found it to be, the more I have studied, a potentially fruitful philosophical enterprise. It provides a radical alternative to contemporary ideas of the self as individualized and differentiated, and is worthy of critical study as a global philosophy. My aim is to understand, articulate, and critique its positions on the self, the world, and God. Being involved in global-critical philosophy of religion is my way of helping this philosophy critically engage with other philosophies of religion around the world in forums where it otherwise lives on the sidelines.

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My research focuses on the traditions of East Asia, especially the time period of China’s Song and Ming dynasties. My teaching commitments over the years have pushed me to engage more material from religious studies, including work from anthropology of religion, history of religion, sociology, and theology. These teaching activities in turn pushed my scholarship toward  the question of the construction of the categories “philosophy” and “religion” in European intellectual history. My current involvement in global-critical philosophy of religion reflects both my philosophical and meta-philosophical interests in, and commitments to, diversifying the practices of academic philosophy.

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I am an independent scholar-educator and translator with specific interests in contemplative practice, embodiment, and mystical experience. My research develops a revisionist understanding of Daoism (Taoism) as an indigenous Chinese religious community from the beginning, characterized by an emphasis on cultivating and embodying the Dao 道 (Tao/Way), the sacred and ultimate concern of Daoists. This work includes an explicit critique of the category of “philosophy” as conventionally understood and applied to Daoism, especially as an (unconscious) means of appropriation, domestication and legitimation rooted in colonialist, missionary, and Orientalist legacies.

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I am interested in the idea that multiple religious traditions disclose truth by means of metaphysical claims, efficacious practice, and moral exemplars. Given the differences and frequent incompatibility between truth-disclosures in religions, I wonder at the source of that difference. I wonder if one can determine whether religions diverge due to linguistic-cultural contingencies or a difference in sacred object. I propose that critical comparison of religions according to rational criteria allows for judgments to be made between competing religious truth claims. The classroom is the perfect laboratory for practicing, as students encounter unfamiliar religious expression, struggle to come to terms with it, and place their own views in critical relation to it.

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My activity in research and teaching on Jainism and other South Asian philosophico-religious traditions is conceived as part of a broader reflection to build a cosmopolitan framework for dialogue between potentially diverse views. This notably involves decolonizing the curriculum, acknowledging the importance of minority traditions in world philosophy and philosophy of religion, as well as investigating South Asian philosophico-religious traditions, which offer innovative approaches to engage with the other and to negotiate situations in which one is confronted with opposing views.

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Nathan Eric Dickman (PhD, The University of Iowa) is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of the Ozarks. He researches in hermeneutic phenomenology, philosophy of language, and comparative questions in philosophies of religions, with particular concerns about global social justice issues in ethics and religions. He has taught a breadth of courses, from Critical Thinking to Zen, and Existentialism to Greek & Arabic philosophy. His book titled “Using Questions to Think” (Bloomsbury, 2021) examines the roles questions play in critical thinking and reasoning, his book titled “Philosophical Hermeneutics and the Priority of Questions in Religions” (Bloomsbury, 2022) examines the roles questions play in religious discourse, and his book titled “Interpretation: A Critical Primer” (Equinox, 2023) examines the role of questions in the interpretation of texts.

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