more on this theme | more from this thinker
Full Idea
There is only a multitude of religions …and the differences between them are so great and so shocking that any common element that can be extracted is meaningless.
Gist of Idea
Religions are so shockingly diverse that they have no common element
Source
John Dewey (The Later Works (17 vols, ed Boydston) [1930], 9:7), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 7 'Construct'
Book Ref
Hildebrand,David: 'Dewey' [One World 2008], p.189
A Reaction
Religion is for Dewey what a game was for Wittgenstein, as an anti-essentialist example. I would have thought that they all involved some commitment to a realm of transcendent existence.
| 22866 | Mind is never isolated, but only exists in its interactions [Dewey] |
| 22873 | Liberalism should improve the system, and not just ameliorate it [Dewey] |
| 22872 | Liberals aim to allow individuals to realise their capacities [Dewey] |
| 22869 | Knowledge is either the product of competent enquiry, or it is meaningless [Dewey] |
| 22870 | No belief can be so settled that it is not subject to further inquiry [Dewey] |
| 22867 | The quest for certainty aims for peace, and avoidance of the stress of action [Dewey] |
| 22864 | Philosophy is the study and criticsm of cultural beliefs, to achieve new possibilities [Dewey] |
| 22879 | 'God' is an imaginative unity of ideal values [Dewey] |
| 22877 | We should try attaching the intensity of religious devotion to intelligent social action [Dewey] |
| 22880 | The things in civilisation we prize are the products of other members of our community [Dewey] |
| 22878 | Religions are so shockingly diverse that they have no common element [Dewey] |