Tradition and authenticity in the search for ecumenic wisdom

About this book

"Our emerging world system is bringing the great traditions and cultures it has spawned into ever more intimate and dangerous contact. Although many of the same processes of change and development are unfolding in different parts of the world, distinctive traditions seem to make conflicting, perhaps irreconcilable, truth claims. The material conquest of the world, through its planetary-scale institutions and through a scientific-universalistic concept of truth, tends to relativize the claims of all cultures. In Tradition and Authenticity in the Search for Ecumenic Wisdom, Thomas Langan argues that we must struggle toward a unity of discourse respectful of genuine experiences of varying civilizations if we are to live peacefully on one planet." "Langan begins by raising the question of whether this search for an ecumenic wisdom is a valid project. He considers the "appropriation" of history in a most original manner, melding phenomenology's appreciation for the interpretative nature of knowledge with classical philosophy's recognition of the objectivity of formal truth." "Drawing upon the thought of Heidegger and Voegelin, among others, he studies the role of explicit traditions in transmitting truths and distinguishes four genera of tradition--artistic, revelational, associational, and scientific-philosophical. Langan lays down the challenge of the "truth question" and shows how understanding the developmental nature of history helps realize such a project without "imperialistically" imposing one tradition's truth and rationality upon another's, but also without yielding to a skeptical relativism." "Langan's compelling exploration of the interaction of different traditions and his ultimate search for an ecumenic wisdom will be fascinating to students and scholars of political philosophy, intellectual history, and theology."--BOOK JACKET.