Philosophy of religion as border control

globalization and the decolonization of the "love of wisdom" (philosophia)

Richard King

pp. 35-53

in: Purushottama Bilimoria, Andrew B. Irvine (eds), Postcolonial philosophy of religion, Berlin, Springer, 2009

Abstract

Mainstream philosophy of religion, particularly in its Anglo-American variant but also in the Continental tradition, is preoccupied by parochial questions that derive from its heritage in liberal Protestantism on the one hand, and the secular Enlightenment on the other. Yet the parochialism is masked by the material and intellectual history of colonial domination that permits "Western" philosophers to pose their questions as ostensibly universal questions asked ofreligion byphilosophy. The process of globalization, however, recalls philosophy from such preoccupation with "border control" to be the loving pursuit of wisdom. The author examines how modern philosophy of religion, including some of the contributions of postcolonial theory, has, by classifying them as religions, subalternized many of the world's wisdom traditions. He concludes by advocating a renewed and more expansive form of philosophy of religion as loving pursuit of wisdom, nourished by a clearer self-critical grasp of its historic situation and limitations.