Spirituality: Notes towards the new research theme of the Dutch Flemish Association for Intercultural Philosophy (for the meeting of the NVVIF Research Group on 17.9.99) Henk Oosterling

During the June 1999 meeting of the Research Group I proposed – seconded by with Wim van Binsbergen and Jan Hoogland -- to develop the structure of research program concerning as I prefer to qualify it Spirituality. In the back of my mind there a practical reason was more or less decisive: in 2001 Rotterdam will be European Cultural Capital and one of the research program will be A Spiritual Map of the area. Although– or rather: because - the presuppositions appear to be rather conventional – added to the Dutch fragmented religious map a bit of Winti, of African religious variations an of course the Islam – our research into this field could add – apart from a substantial philosophical dimension – a more up to date spiritual dimension: the apparent need for spirituality within a materialistic consumert society. So the more conventional and institutional question of religion can be informed by a intercultural perspective. However, non by embracing New Age spirituality but by introducing a ‘cosmopolitic/al’ or ‘………’ dimension in which more than a harmonious sensus communis a more conflict, tension or to use a Lyotardian term: differend oriented spirituality is explored.

To start the preliminary discussions on this topis Wim asked me to ‘kick off’. For a symposium to be held in november of this year I am working on a paper that is not ready by now. But the perspective is given in a few article and parts of books I published ‘recently’:

·         “Een wereld van Verschil. Over zingeving en (spi)ritualiteit in postmoderrne tijden” in: Scherven brengen geluk. Identiteit en geloven in een wereld van verschillen. André Lascaris, Leo Oosterveen, Ad Willems (red.), DSTS, Nijmegen/Zoetermeer 1996, pp. 13-32.

·         “Levenskunst. (Spi)ritualiteit van het nihilisme” in: Kunst na de dood van God. Jan Hoet (red.), Gooi en Sticht, Baarn 1997, pp. 32-54.

·         ”Aporie als existentiële ervaring: (spi) ritualiteit” in: Door schijn bewogen. Naar een hyperkritiek van de xenofobe rede. Henk Oosterling, Kok Agora, Kampen 1996, pp. 626-631.

(The articles are added to the e-mail, the Hoet text is lost, but I included the lecture on which it is based)

Of course Wim asked me to write an article as a kick off – in English – but I not only have to restrict myself and even prefer to give some indications for a kick off in order to give members of the research group the possibility to indicate their personal expertise and preferences.

-          defining the ‘object’: are we opting for a religious experience that difffers from or lacks the traditional, conventional meaning? In how is spirituality related to this experience?

-          In what sense is this experience interculturally interesting or inter-ested? Can it be related to a sensus communis? And if so how can it be connected to our last project on sensus communis?

-          Is their a connetion between spirituality and rituality as I suggest in the neologism: (spi)rituality? To be more precise: is the practice of a spatio-temporal collective structure of behavior constitutive for a spiritual experience or is there a ‘personal’ experience still available in our consumer society that nevertheless is not part of the useful circulation of goods, services and experiences?

-          How does antropology fit in to this project?

Perhaps this – and the articles, but alas in Dutch – suffices for the moment.

Henk Oosterling

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