Search

The majority of theologians, philosophers, and religious leaders have, during the past five decades, either argued or taken it for granted that the primary aim of interreligious dialogue is mutual understanding and that the purpose of realizing this aim is mitigation of alienation, hatred, and violence between the religions and cooperation on worthwhile projects. On the contrary, the author of this paper argues that the primary aim of interreligious dialogue should be to create a bond of friendship between the various religions of the world. In his attempt to establish the validity of this proposition, the author, first, advances a concept of "collective subject" as a condition for the possibility of friendship primarily because friendship is viewed as a relation between two human subjects; second, he introduces a general concept of friendship whose main elements are good will, mutual affection, and social service; and, third, he argues that religions can, qua collective subjects, establish a bond of friendship between them.

The focus of my attention in this chapter is God-centeredness. Some theologians and philosophers have argued that this orientation cannot be a condition of interreligious dialogue for at least four reasons. First, it is a given fact that religions view their beliefs and values as unquestionably true. Second, all religions are embedded in radically different cultural contexts. Third, grounding all religions in a transcendent reality relativizes their beliefs and values. Moreover, people worship their God, not a neutral reality. Fourth, it is difficult to ground all religions in a transcendent reality anyway. In this chapter, I evaluate these arguments and defend the belief that the mystical experience provides a justifiable basis for the claim that the transcendent is not only a wealth of being and that the same transcendent is revealed in the mystical experience that underlies all religions. The transcendent is the common ground on which all religions stand in interreligious dialogue.

This chapter explores the formal and structural conditions of the possibility of interreligious dialogue. It is intended as a conceptual framework within which the main concepts of this book are discussed. The proposition I defend is that to be transformative of attitudes or feelings, the dialogue should be God-centered, objective, and empathetic, and it should be founded in the values of respect, tolerance, and equality. In the first part of the chapter, I discuss the following question: What are the structural elements of dialogue between (a) individuals and (b) religious communities? In the second part, I discuss the conditions under which interreligious dialogue can change attitudes and views of how a religious person thinks and feels about the religiously different other. What does it take to discern the truth of a religion that makes claims similar to ours? We may construct a strategy or an agenda for a rational dialogue between two religions, but still the question remains: How can a community that tends to believe that its version of the revealed word of God is true, unquestionably true, change their attitude or view of the other religion?

In this chapter, I discuss in some detail the concept of mutual respect in interreligious dialogue. I argue that the subject of the conversation in this kind of dialogue is a collective subject composed of three elements: the revealed truth, the interpreters of the truth, and the religious community. Toward the realization of this purpose, I advance a concept of respect in general and respect for human beings in particular. The basis of respect is possession of human value. The kind and significance of respect is commensurate with the kind and significance of the value it embodies. Humanity is absolutely valuable; therefore, human beings should be respected as ends in themselves even when they are used as means to ends. I conclude this discussion with an analysis of the following question: Why is humanity absolute valuable? I argue that human beings should be respected always as ends in themselves not only because they are capable of self-determination, as many philosophers have argued, but primarily because humanity is sacred, and it is sacred because it emanates from the divine essence.

A large number of scholars have argued that a) Islamic architecture is hidden, in the sense that its interior is not articulated on the basis of its exterior; b) the form of Islamic buildings neither expresses nor embodies its function; and c) Islamic architecture is not tectonic or structural, but iconic in character. In this paper, we use Ernst Grube’s analysis of these three claims and focus our attention on the design of the congregational mosques. This paper presents informed arguments against these claims. We begin the discussion with a clarification of the meaning of ‘form follows function’. A clear understanding of the relationship between these two concepts is indispensable for evaluating the claims that Grube makes in his analyses. Then we argue that the form of the congregational mosque embodies its function in a significant manner. Finally, the paper explains in some detail how the function of a mosque is the basis on which its formal structure is designed. The proposition that we defend in this paper is that Islamic architecture exists and expresses the spirit of Islamic culture.

PART I: AESTHETICS OF ARCHITECTURE: QUESTIONS. Francis SPARSHOTT: The Aesthetics of Architecture and the Politics of Space. Arnold BERLEANT: Architecture and the Aesthetics of Continuity. Stephen DAVIES: Is Architecture Art? PART II: NATURE OF ARCHITECTURE. B.R. TILGHMAN: Architecture, Expression, and the Understanding of a Culture. David NOVITZ: Architectural Brilliance and the Constraints of Time. Michael H. MITIAS: Expression in Architecture. Ralf WEBER: The Myth of Meaningful Forms. Michael H. MITIAS: Is Meaning in Architecture a Myth? A Response to Ralf Weber. PART III: AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE IN ARCHITECTURE. Allen CARLSON: Existence, Location, and Function: The Appreciation of Architecture. Martin DONOUGHO: Spaced Out or Folded In? Trends in Architectural Choreography. Tom LEDDY: Dialogical Architecture. Roy T. DECKER: Tactility and Imagination: Considerations of Aesthetic Experience in Architecture. Robert GINSBERG: Aesthetics in Hiroshima. The Architecture of Remembrance.

The question I discuss here is, What is the structure and content of the aesthetic experience of the architectural work? My aim is to focus critical attention on what it means for a building to be a work of architecture. Under what theoretical and perceptual conditions is it possible to experience, appreciate, and evaluate a building as an architectural integrity, in its own terms, without appealing to, or relying on, an external or implied philosophical, ideological, political, or social agenda?1 Again, given an architectural work that sits in a certain "place," what makes this work architecture? I am in search of that aspect, element, or stratum in a building that "makes" it architecture or that transforms the physical structure of this building into a work of architecture, that is, art. I assume that an adequate analysis of the experience of architecture is the safest road to a reasonable understanding of (a) the nature of architecture, (b) the basis of criticism and evaluation in architecture, and (c) the principles of aesthetic education in architecture.2 For how can we determine whether a building is architecture if we do not know what it means for something to be architecture and if this knowledge is not derived from a serious encounter with architectural works? More

In both Marx and Schaff, Marxism does not provide an adequate interpretation of the individual. The main reason for this is that there is no satisfactory analysis of autonomy.

In a recent study, “Expressiveness: Where is the Feeling Found?” Harold Osborne argues that an aesthetic, or expressive, quality is, or exists, in the work of art; that is, when we perceive a piece of music, for example, as sad the aesthetic quality of sadness ‘exists’ in the musical piece: “we perceive the sadness ‘in’ the music and we perceive this feeling directly and correctly as we perceive sadness in ourselves, not as we infer feelings in other people.”1 It is, I think, normal for people to be sad, to be conscious of themselves as sad, and to say that they experience at times feelings of sadness; it is also normal to view the feeling of sadness as a dynamic mental state, that is, as a mental event, as a mental process whose character of sadness can be intuited and understood immediately. It is normal, in other words, to say that human beings enjoy, or have, feelings of sadness. But it is not normal, even among artists and aestheticians, to say that a feeling ‘exists’ in a work of art or that a person can, or does, experience a feeling in such a work, mainly because art works are not sentient or conscious subjects; they are inanimate objects. We should, accordingly, ask: what do we mean when we say that the aesthetic quality of sadness is experienced in Sibelius’s Valse Triste, for example? How are we to understand, or explicate, the meaning of ‘in’ in this context? Put differently, what is the ontological status of aesthetic, or expressive, qualities? In what follows I shall present a critical evaluation of Osborne’s view of the ontological status of aesthetic qualities. I shall first consider the highlights of his position and then evaluate these highlights.

entity or essence. Second, I shall propose a conception of the ontological status of the literary work of art. Here I shall present two arguments: (1) The object of literary criticism, appreciation, and education is a process of meaningful experience; it becomes actual, it acquires identity, in the event of reading a literary work, in which we become responsive to its basic elements, given and potential, and realize, in a creative effort, the aesthetic qualities that are potential in it as an organic whole. (2) The literary work of art is fundamentally a perceived object, but one perceived imaginatively rather than sensuously. The experience in which it is realized involves the perception of a relatively stable linguistic structure. This structure is the basis of the aesthetic experience; it is also the objective ground of aesthetic evaluation and criticism. I shall consider these questions critically and then advance a constructive analysis of the ontological status of the object of literary criticism.