Panikkar: Intercultural Hermeneutics

[JimmyAberg]

If the task of philosophy is to understand reality, and reality is something other  than myself or my specific culture or worldview, then philosophy needs to become an intercultural activity. This has not always been the case. If I assume that my culture is singularly gifted with access to truth, the philosophical task is primarily pedagogical and dialectical. However, once it is admitted that the other who does not share my cultural worldview is an original source of human understanding, traditional philosophy is called upon to unmask its pretensions of universal understanding. The same is true for theology. In the new situation of religious pluralism, theological hermeneutics needs to become an interreligious activity based on dialogical strategies. Raimon Panikkar's challenge to the philosophers and theologians of our time is precisely one of raising to consciousness the theoretical and practical importance of the other for cultural and religious hermeneutics.

In order to meet this challenge, Panikkar introduces his three pivotal ideas of diatopical hermeneutics, dialogical dialogue and homeomorphic equivalence. The aim of this paper is to explore their meaning and significance in terms of their contribution to providing a method for interreligious and intercultural encounter. In this task, I am fully aware of Panikkar's own suspicion of method when he states that "a known method can only achieve known results." Method is too often associated with the western-scientific approach which Panikkar wishes to critique as the only valid means for the understanding of reality. Nonetheless, the corpus of Panikkar's work does suggest a variety of understandings and strategies that are necessary for the validity of interreligious and intercultural hermeneutics.

Diatopical Hermeneutics

Diatopical hermeneutics stands for the thematic consideration of understanding the other without assuming that the other has the same basic self-understanding as I have. The ultimate human horizon, and not only differing contexts, is at stake here. [4]


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Dialogical Dialogue

The method in this third moment [i.e. diatopical hermeneutics] is a peculiar dialogical dialogue, the dia-logos piercing the logos in order to reach that dialogical, translogical realm of the heart (according to most traditions), allowing for the emergence of a myth in which we may commune, and which will ultimately allow under-standing (standing under the same horizon of intelligibility). [28]


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Homeomorphic Equivalence

Homology does not mean that two notions are analogous, that is, partially the same and partially different, since this implies that both share in a 'tertium quid' that provides the basis for the analogy. Homology means rather that the notions play equivalent roles, that they occupy homologous spaces within their respective systems. Homology is perhaps a kind of existential-functional analogy. . . . Homeomorphism . . . represents a functional equivalence discovered through a topological transformation. [44]

Källa och fortsättning:http://dlibrary.acu.edu.au/research/theology/ghall_panikkar.htm

Kort youtube klipp: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbjd_Tdnqxg

[JimmyAberg]

Ett smakprov:

Stated differently, diatopical hermeneutics arises in response to the challenge of interpreting across cultural and religious boundaries where the hermeneutic circle has yet to be created. [8] In this sense, diatopical hermeneutics is thoroughly postmodern in its refusal to colonize the 'other' with one's own set of religious or cultural presuppositions. However, in contradistinction to some postmodern literature, Panikkar does assume that communication among radically different worldviews is possible--indeed, indispensable. For this to occur, he introduces what he calls the imparative  method, "the effort at learning from the other and the attitude of allowing our own convictions to be fecundated by the insights of the other." [9] As distinct from the comparative method, which privileges dialectics and argumentative discourse, the imparative method of diatopical hermeneutics focuses on the praxis of dialogue in the existential encounter. Panikkar is explicit on this point: "it is only in doing, the praxis, that diatopical hermeneutics functions." [10]

In order to appreciate the imparative method of diatopical hermeneutics, it is necessary to be aware of Panikkar's distinctions between mythos, logos and symbol. These foundational categories effectively operate as three distinct yet interrelated means of intersubjective communication and modes of discourse. [11] To begin, he distinguishes mythos and interpretation (logos):

   A living myth does not allow for interpretation because it needs no intermediary. The hermeneutic of a myth is no longer the myth, but its logos. Myth is precisely the horizon over against which any hermeneutic is possible. Myth is that which we take for granted, that which we do not question; and it is unquestioned because, de facto, it is not seen as questionable. The myth is transparent like the light, and the mythical story--mythologumenon--is only the form, the garment in which the myth happens to be expressed, enwrapped, illumined. [12]

The most important mythical stories are those that tell of a particular tradition's origins. Mircea Eliade viewed cosmogonic myths--stories of tribal origins--as the most significant feature in the identity-formation of primal cultures. [13] They are no less important for cultures and religions, ancient and modern, today. What Panikkar adds to this is the view that the very power of myth is founded in its unquestionableness. How then is the myth communicated? The myth may be narrated in story or parable, or otherwise transmitted through symbol and ritual, but the moment we begin to explain or interpret the myth we have already converted it into an object of thought (logos). Mythic discourse precedes this subject-object dichotomy and, in so doing, highlights the primacy of experience over interpretation. [14] The pervasive power of myth is in its ability to capture the heart rather than the mind which it does by revealing itself from the transcendent horizon of mystery. Every culture and religion has a mythic foundation, a set of taken-for granted truths about reality, which constitutes that tradition's horizon or lifeworld. The meeting of religions and cultures is often an unsatisfactory experience precisely because there is a clash of myths, each with its own universalist claims. [15]

When Panikkar speaks of the "myth of pluralism," he is locating pluralism within this mythic realm. "Pluralism," he states, "is indeed a myth in the most rigorous sense: an ever-elusive horizon in which we situate things in order to be conscious of them without ever converting the horizon into an object." [16] He is the first to agree that pluralism cannot be logically deduced from pure reasoning since, ...