Interreligious Dialogue: A Challenge for Phenomenology

Abstract

This article assesses the possible role and scope of phenomenology for the emerging field of interreligious studies while at the same time bringing forth a critical reflection on the practice of phenomenology itself, and more particularly of phenomenology of religion. It contends that phenomenology can be used as a descriptive method in order to understand the structures of experience which are at stake in interreligious dialogue, thus complementing the current approaches in interreligious studies towards this question which are mainly normative. Moreover, it can offer a comprehension of the paradoxical dimension of interreligious dialogue which is marked by a tension between openness and closedness, by drawing on Husserl’s phenomenology of the world, and its dynamic opposition between homeworld and foreign world. This analysis is structured around four argumentative moments: (1) an overview of the main features of the history of the phenomenology of religion and its problematic relationship towards the interreligious space; (2) an assessment of the main advantages of the phenomenological method for the study of religious and especially interreligious studies; (3) a sketch of a possible phenomenology of dialogue, grounding mainly on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology; (4) a sketch of a possible phenomenology of interreligious dialogue, drawing on Husserl’s phenomenology.