For those interested, the videos and abstracts of the English sessions of the conference are uploaded:

*Presentation Title: Reaching the Other on the Horizon of Pre-understanding; On the Possibility of Religious Pluralism

*Presenter: Abdulsamet ŞENTÜRK (Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey)

Presentation Video

According to the pluralist discourse, the difference between religious beliefs can be overcome, and there can be innumerable manifestations of a single truth. Religious pluralism implies that each claim to truth is true in itself, implying that one can bracket cultural and historical pre-understandings on the horizon of meaning. In other words, it speaks of the need to open up to the difference and consider the other. J. Hick, E. Troeltsch, W.E. Hocking, A. Toynbee, and M. M. Shabesteri vigorously defend Religious pluralism in the above sense. This research focuses on religious pluralism’s approach to scriptures, concluding that pluralist discourse creates a meta-narrative by reducing it to the dimensions of historical and cultural experience and ignoring the sacred text’s “grammar of depth.” Religious pluralists attempt to “purify” the sacred texts from their historical and cultural weight at the cost of universality and polyphony—like a demythologization. The paper employs hermeneutics’ contextual reading and the analytical method’s logical inferences, consistency, and validity principles. Additionally, Gadamer’s judgment has been adopted, who argues that the human horizon of meaning can only be opened to potential understanding possibilities at the dawn of pre-meaning. It is contentious to assert one’s understanding of actions, self, and language through surpassing them—a matter opened to argument. Similarly, the endeavor to delineate the confines of meaning by surpassing sacred texts also invites debate, as does the proposition that these boundaries can be definitively established.