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Pragmatism, Spirituality
and Society
Border Crossings,
Transformations and
Planetary Realizations
Edited by
Ananta Kumar Giri
Pragmatism, Spirituality and Society
Ananta Kumar Giri
Editor
Pragmatism,
Spirituality
and Society
Border Crossings, Transformations
and Planetary Realizations
Editor
Ananta Kumar Giri
Madras Institute of Development Studies
Chennai, India
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.
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tion in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither
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This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Singapore Pte Ltd.
The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore
189721, Singapore
For Margaret Chatterjee, Vincent Sheen and Francis X. Clooney
Foreword
Pragmatism has fallen on bad days. As commonly used in our time, the
term tends to stand for a down-to-earth outlook, for a pliant accommo-
dation to “the way things are”—or the way things are assumed to be in a
given context. The only yardstick accepted by devotees of pragmatism is
hard-nosed compliance with factual conditions, a compliance which alone
can insure success of one’s chosen aims. What is bypassed by this stance is
the plethora of possibilities which can be pursued in response to prevailing
conditions. What is completely sidelined is the ethical quality of a chosen
course of action—a neglect which rules out of order any concern with
spirituality and creative human imagination.
The decay of pragmatism just described is the result of many factors,
above all the rise of “scientism” and “positivism” during the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries. What is commonly meant by positivism is the
exclusive reliance on factually ascertained knowledge, a reliance which
necessarily shuns any kind of “negativity” as well as any form of world-
transcendence (and self-transcendence). In a similar way, what is meant
by scientism is the elevation of factual knowledge to an all—embracive
worldview bordering on a metaphysical creed or dogma. Seen in this light,
scientism is clearly very different from modern science which is predicated
on sober inquiry and questioning. Taken as serious inquiry in the latter
sense, science has no trouble in being compatible with a non-positivist
imagination and even spirituality.
vii
viii FOREWORD
Fred Dallmayr
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, USA
References
Dallmayr, Fred. 2010. Democratic Action and Experience: Dewey’s ‘Holistic’
Pragmatism. In The Promise of Democracy: Political Agency and Transforma-
tion, ed. Fred Dallmayr, 43–65. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Dewey, John. 1969. The Ethics of Democracy. In John Dewey: The Early Works,
1882–1898, vol. 1, ed. George E. Astelle et al., 236–240. Carbondale, IL:
Southern Illinois University.
Preface
xi
xii PREFACE
Vincent Sheen was a deep philosopher from China who taught many
years at University of Toronto. I met him in our RVP (Research in Values
xiv PREFACE
reality reflects the human image in ways that men find it potentially intel-
ligible, many women still find the female experiences and images, and by
the perception that their own gendered identity somehow makes them
unlike God as traditionally conceived in Christianity, as God, as Father, as
Son. If some men are satisfied while many women feel marginalized, we
all suffer, since we are left with a diminished set of experiences to draw
upon in imagining and addressing God. We are deprived of a whole set
of natural, cultural, and religious resources such as might otherwise enrich
our understanding of the divine Person. (Clooney 2005: 3–4)
God has put eternity into heart of man. When cultivated it introduces to
a higher world than the material. (Radhakrishna 1918: 13)
We can also possibly sing and dance with the following two poems:
xvi PREFACE
Oh Supreme Beauty
Oh Supreme Beauty!
Pure Consciousness
Limitless Energy of
Care and Compassion
I walk with you in manifold paths of
Practical renunciation
Each moment is
A sadhana and struggle
With Love and Transformation. (Giri 2019: 123)
References
Chatterjee, Margaret. 2002. Hinterlands and Horizons: Excursions in Search of
Amity. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Chatterjee, Margaret. 2005a. Gandhi and the Challenge of Religious Diversity:
Religious Pluralism Revisited. Delhi and Chicago: Promilla & Co.
Chatterjee, Margaret. 2005b. Lifeworlds, Philosophy, and India Today. Shimla:
Indian Institute of Advanced Studies.
Chatterjee, Margaret. 2007. Lifeworld and Ethics: Studies in Several Keys.
Washington, DC: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy.
Clooney, Francis X. 2005. Divine Mother, Blessed Mother: Hindu Goddesses and
the Virgin Mary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Clooney, Francis X. 2011. Comparative Theology: Deep Learning Across Religious
Borders. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.
PREFACE xvii
xix
xx CONTENTS
Afterword 347
Index 351
Notes on Editor and Contributors
Editor
xxiii
xxiv NOTES ON EDITOR AND CONTRIBUTORS
Contributors