The Perennial Philosophy, or Perennialism for short, claims that the depth traditions found within the major world religions all converge upon the same metaphysical vision - namely, the identification of our deepest selves with a divine, transcendental ground. Popularized by Aldous Huxley in his 1945 The Perennial Philosophy it has a natural appeal to many thinking, spiritually inclined individuals - including those who have never explicitly heard of it. - Jon
In this debate Jonathan will critique the perennial philosophy; Zevi will defend it.
Jonathan Weidenbaum is a professor of philosophy and world religions at Berkeley College.
Zevi Slavin is a seeker, a teacher, and creator of Seekers of Unity.
See Jonathan’s work here:
https://berkeleycollege.academia.edu/JonathanWeidenbaum
https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/Jonathan-Weidenbaum/103460987
Particularly:
A Little Disillusionment is a Good Thing: Perennialism, Process Theology, and Religious Diversity
The Metaphysics of Alterity and Unity: Levinas and Perennialism
Why I am Not a Pantheist (Nor a Panentheist) Metaphysics, Totalization, and the Cosmos
With Open Doors and Windows, Doing theology in the spirit of William James
Upcoming with Nicholas Colemean: The Bell and the Hammer: for and against a perennialist philosophy (seeking a publisher, if you know any…)
00:00 Introduction: Omar Lughod
00:54 Introducing Perennialism: Jonathan
06:09 Critiquing Perennialism: Jonathan
31:50 Defending Perennialism: Zevi
51:50 Response: Jonathan
56:38 Response: Zevi
Q&A Session
1:01:27 What about religions that disagree?
1:04:12 From debate to discussion
1:07:53 What would it take to change your mind?
1:13:11 Is this all just ideas to you?
1:16:53 Baruch Thaler: What’s the bottom line?
1:18:46 What’s with all this New Age-ism?
1:33:03 Closing words
“Neither the mystic nor the philosopher can remain content with an irreducible heterogeneity of mystical experience, the mystic because the ultimate character of the experience implies a universal claim, the philosopher because a diversity of ultimate claims is a challenge not a resting-place. Thus, it is not an uneducated essentialist desire, but religious integrity or philosophical urgency that leads those who no longer find an exclusive claim by any single tradition convincing to seek an underlying unity and to investigate the equivalence of symbols under their diversity.”
- Charles Davis in his review of Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, by Steven Katz, ed.
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