This is a 6000-word essay that I submitted for a course in EFL University, Hyderabad. Read Part I here.
It has been established that Skepticism is not a realistic model for religious dialogue. If, then—going back to the essential argument—the Skeptic model is too far-fetched a dream to attain, what next best alternative can one hope for to ensure healthy religious dialogue?
Since emotion has been established as a cornerstone, it logically follows that the understanding of the other’s emotion will aid healthy religious dialogue. Therefore, an attempt must be made to separate the emotions or motivations driving the logical conclusions of an individual from the individual himself. Bertocci expands on this issue.
The issues go beyond the conflict of two disciplines. The conflict involves the whole problem of how to explain events. The tension is not between two kinds of people; it is one between two types of motives and interests which activate every thinking human being.
Bertocci also believes that conflict in communication may arise from logical inconsistencies. As such, before engaging in religious discourse, it should be incumbent on all parties to find a level of clarity and consistency.
However, before one analyzes rational aspects of a particular argument, it is imperative to understanding the emotions of the other individual i.e. how fierce their affectation is to their loyalties, the level of intolerance to other ideas, etc. The facilitation of healthy communication, thus, is dependent on the fulfillment of two objectives; the primary objective must be to apprehend the emotions of the other, while the secondary to understand the rational arguments deriving from such emotions.
The theories of Raimon Panikkar, a proponent of interfaith dialogue, may be of assistance, especially because they were developed on the basis of spiritual experiences. Panikkar included and attempted to decipher mysticism (his conception of all divine things) as part of the human existence. Such a categorization may be construed as preferring spiritual, transcendent or affective elements to logical, precise and mathematical ones.
In fact, Panikkar was generally untrustworthy of rational faculties; he was less satisfied with the understanding of a human being as a rational animal, and he believed that knowledge attained through purely intellectual faculties ought to be placed at a lower level to spiritual experiences. Could it be possible that the aforementioned pitfalls of Pyrrhonism—or Skepticism in general—contributed to such an outlook?
Speculations aside, it is evident that Panikkar was deeply concerned with emotional interconnectivity among humans. He believed that “inasmuch as we try to unify our lives around the center, all of us have something of the monk in us” (‘monk’ being roughly equated to the philosophical self). The core to understanding this innate ‘monk’—which, in a broader sense, will help an individual understand the interests of the other—lies in a rediscovery of the centrality of silence.
The term ‘silence’ is self-explanatory, but its ramifications are, for Panikkar, crucial to understanding dialogue. For it is when one is in a state of silence that one can comprehend the other person’s speech. Those who fail to achieve this experience of silence are not able to accommodate others. In a state of non-silence, one may become sectarian and non-inclusive, for the inability to apprehend the ‘monk’ in the other leads to miscommunication (or a refusal to communicate clearly), which in turn leads to conflict.
This silence is not at all similar to the aim of speechlessness propounded by Pyrrhonism. Speechlessness emerged as a logical conclusion for Pyrrho to the detriment of language or speech. Panikkar appears to merely prioritize one over the other; however, in his interpretation, humans are still free to speak or to stay silent.
Panikkar constantly juxtapositions silence with speech (which he terms ‘word’). It is not that silence is a form of abstinence or total renunciation of the word. Silence and the word are two parts of the same reality. However, Panikkar points out that at the beginning of time, the word (i.e. speech, system of language, etc.) was preceded by silence, and that silence was in a way the originator of language. In fact, words themselves, as Giancarlo Vianello in his essay on Panikkar puts it, “are soaked, impregnated with silence”.
More importantly, Panikkar theorizes that the word which emerges from silence is superior to the silence that emerges from the word—which is to say that in religious dialogues, when one adopts an approach of punctuating silence by the word, that is preferable to perceiving silence as the break between constant speech.
Panikkar constantly implies the superiority of silence to the word. He understands that reality itself may be united through it (because “silence is one, words are many.”) Admittedly these are vague proclamations; understandable, of course, when one considers that Panikkar’s system of thought pertaining to interfaith dialogue emerged from a fundamentally mystic, imprecise domain.
However, within these vagaries is another interesting juxtaposition, this time between Western and Eastern language. Panikkar observes that both approaches to the creation and usage of language were very different. The Western tradition attempted to master reality by assigning a particular word to a particular object or event. Their intent was to depart from the world of myth by giving each word a meaning (or impose one upon it) via the use of language. Linguistics thus became a mere tool to structure and define.
This imposition of meaning, according to Panikkar, led to a degenerative and entropic process of Western language. They were later forced to confront the consequences of it (one can find traces of this in Derrida’s deconstruction of structuralism, or the notion of Ecriture feminine). The East, conversely, embraced the void, nothingness and ‘silence’ of reality into their system of language, and instead adapted language around this void.
While the Westerner would definitively claim the colour of the sky to be blue, the Easterner would recognize ‘blue’ as a linguistic construct and, with a symbolic attitude, use ‘blue’ as a kind of placeholder for the description of the shade of the sky. Panikkar encourages people in interfaith dialogues to bear in mind the Eastern tradition.
How does this relate to pinpointing the affective? Panikkar’s conception of the Eastern tradition of language is linked to human thought. He believes language to be intrinsic to human beings, but not in a merely instrumental faculty. Language, according to Panikkar, has the potential to unite the relational and dialoguing instincts of humans. Crucially, it can foster an intrinsic solidarity. It may be interpreted that—when there is more patience and tolerance to grasp the inherent meanings of the speaker conversing in the Eastern language (in other words, to grasp the spirit of the law)—there is also a subsequent patience and tolerance to understand their emotional interests.
(A minor digression: Panikkar theorizes on the collective agreement of language and of language enabling thought instead of reality. Even though Panikkar is far from an epistemologist, his ideas echo those of Hume. He also disagrees with inaction, claiming that “as long as one has a body, one cannot renounce action altogether,” which may be perceived as a response to Pyrrhonism and a natural extension of Skepticism.)
By (a) preferring silence to the word, and (b) perceiving language through a symbolic, aesthetic attitude via the Eastern tradition, one may thus come closer to understanding the emotional motivations of a person in religious dialogue. Now arises the matter of apprehending their rational arguments (motivated, of course, by their emotional faculties) and responding to them in an apt manner.
Since objective truth and objective probability have been established as unsuitable metrics, the key to understanding the other’s rational arguments lies in identifying their subjective levels of truths and probabilities. If, then, a Christian asserts the existence of God, it would not be healthy to impose the characteristics of the Christian God (the Creator, the Everlasting, etc.) upon the converser. That would coincide with the Western tradition of language. First, of course, there ought to be the acknowledgment that one is engaging with probabilities, but after that the listener must also enquire about the specifics of this God. Is God, in their opinion, omnipresent? Is He omnipotent? Is He a divine dispenser of justice? For it may be that the individual, despite being a Christian, disagrees with the finer points or dogmas of Catholicism.
Despite the arguments that his philosophy contains a Jewish bias, it must be noted that Emmanuel Levinas, during his conception of the ‘Other’, was not considering a theological perspective. Nevertheless, his reversal of the self-and-the-world dynamic, as well as his ethical obligation to the Other contain important guidelines for understanding the rational arguments of the Other in religious dialogue.
Levinas, in his intent to achieve long-lasting peace, prioritizes the Other to the self. Prior to interacting with the Other, the self is in a state of psychism (separation from other human beings) where they may indulge in enjoyment or labour. It is the Other who interrupts and shatters the enjoyment—and, by extension, the general interiority of the self—forcing the self to listen and respond to the Other. The duties toward the Other take precedence over the rights of the self. It may be interpreted that Levinas subordinates the self to the Other in a rigid, duty-bound manner. The presence of the Other is almost divine in how it shatters one’s own desires, motivations, priorities and general selfishness.
There are several conditions to be met for the Other’s speech to attain such significance in the eyes of the self, of which the most relevant here is ‘surplus’. The ethical moment of the Other is encapsulated in ‘surplus’; it is the presence of the Other in speech through sincerity. This surplus of sincerity in speech is what separates truths from lies; which is to say that the ethical obligation may be broken if the Other’s opinions are untrue to themselves—like, say, in the case of Internet trolls; the crudest, but perhaps the best example for this phenomenon. Therefore, it is not only the self that has an ethical obligation in dialogue.
To use a purposefully far-fetched example—if the Other asserts that they have seen Allah two blocks away, then the self is obliged to listen to this assertion as long as the Other truly exhibits sincerity. This sincerity is an intangible, a vagary; but one can see the links between it and emotion. Personally, it seems the best way for the self to detect whether the Other shows a true surplus of sincerity is to understand their emotions. If one can sense (in the case of the aforementioned example of Allah) genuine urgency, desperation, ecstasy, etc. in the Other’s speech, that would fulfil a key condition for the self to be ethically obliged to listen to the Other.
It must be made clear that the aim is not to indulge the Other’s falsities. It is to provide justice to the Other by listening to their rationalities. The self is not bound to agree with them. If the self provides justice to the Other by understanding fully their claims despite vehemently disagreeing with them, then they have the liberty to argue the statement in response. Of course, during the response the self would become the Other for the Other, and now they would be obliged to provide justice, as long as the response contains, among other things, a surplus of sincerity. In the context of religious dialogue, this manner of communication may have an outline to help two or more parties gauge each other’s lines of assumptions, agree upon common truths and proceed with the dialogue in a healthy manner.
The commensurability between Panikkar and Levinas is readily apparent. In fact, one of Panikkar’s writings could just as easily have been claimed to be written by Levinas, and it would have been difficult to spot the difference.
In order to understand others as they understand themselves, I have to become the other—that is, share in their experience, participate in their particular world, be converted to their way of life. How can a Christian understand a Hindu if he does not become a Hindu?
If this is the case, why is personal discretion used to bifurcate Panikkar and Levinas in terms of the emotional and rational realm respectively? While the theories of Panikkar and Levinas (in terms of their relation to the other) may be interpreted as largely overlapping, they differentiate in their approach. Panikkar’s cornerstone was in dissuading conclusions by the cognitive mind and, instead, exploring the spiritual, the mystic and the affective faculties. Levinas reaches a similar conclusion but on rational terms (at least in relation to Panikkar), at the effect of making his theories more precise and rigid.
(It must here be noted that there are elements of Levinas and Panikkar’s philosophies that, at the outset, must be dispensed in this context. The fact that Panikkar believes in the Absolute, in the existence of one God represented through multiple religions—or that Levinas idealizes the Other through Cartesian ontologism is here not assumed. What is considered is only what is mentioned—their approaches to interfaith dialogue and theories on healthy communication.)
It is time to condense all the aforementioned arguments into a step-by-step guideline to help make religious dialogues healthier. These steps attempt to be realistic rather than idealistic, but by no means attempt to be gospel.
(a) To ensure, prior to entering a religious dialogue, that one’s views and opinions do not have logical inconsistencies. While, of course, it may well be impossible to enter any dialogue with flawless arguments, there must be an effort to not have massive, glaring factual errors, and a readiness to concede one’s errors should they be pointed out.
(b) To agree with the Skeptic’s disdain for objective truths yet instead ally with Hume’s Mitigated Skepticism; thus, to enter the religious dialogue with the intent to find statements that all can agree upon as ‘true’ on the basis of probabilities.
(c) To separate the arguments made by the individual from the individual i.e. to not resort to personal insults.
(d) To apprehend the emotions driving these arguments with the aid of Panikkar’s theories on Silence and the Word and—by adopting an Eastern tradition of language—avoid digressions by attempting to grasp the spirit of the content, instead of bogging oneself down with overly precise articulations.
(e) To relegate one’s personal subjectivity by listening and understanding the rational arguments of the Other (which, of course, are motivated by the aforementioned emotional drives), thus adopting Levinas’ model of ethical obligation.
(f) Finally, assuming that the other participants of the dialogue are as equally ethically obliged, to identify everyone’s assumed truths and then find common grounds on the basis of probability, emotion and reason.
After the successful completion of these steps, the truths now agreed upon have the best chance to be assimilated in the consciousness of the parties involved in the dialogue. Panikkar theorizes that the monk, by continuing the silence of the self, would renounce their own identity, and that they would, in a way cease to exist. Levinas appears to suggest something similar, concluding that it is only through the Other that the self may survive. However, especially considering that the individuality of the self is necessary to contributing newer, carefully refined ideas in religious dialogue, there is no compulsion to agree with this.
One can conclude Skepticism in religious discourse to be an unrealistic ideal (owing to its infinite regresses being incompatible to human psyche), but nevertheless being an important tool to deconstruct the notion of truth. Mitigated Skepticism is of greater aid, but the subjectivity of Mitigated Skepticism, driven by individual emotions, is—in this analysis, at least—considered to be the greatest tool to unpick unhealthy conflicts in religious dialogue.
Originally published: 17 October 2019 (apx.)
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