Can Cobb Integrate Dharmak?rti?

by Keating, Colleen

Deep Religious Pluralism is a recent compilation of attempts to integrate religious systems within a superstructure of Process metaphysics, or the “complementary pluralistic hypothesis.” I argue that Process complementary pluralism entails a specific metaphysics of time, which can be represented by the growing block theory in analytic philosophy. It relies upon the metaphysics of complementary pluralism as a superstructure within which to construe the diversity of religions as valid, insofar as they each make contact with a different “ultimate reality.” If it is the case that the ultimate reality of a religious tradition conflicts with the superstructure, then integration of that tradition into a deep religious pluralism fails. Dharmak?rti’s Buddhist view of time serves as a test case, to show that there are conflicts between it and Process metaphysics. Ultimately, I conclude that there are tensions within Whitehead’s work which need be explored further to extract a more satisfactory ontology, at least when attempting to compare Process and other religious metaphysics. Keating, Colleen, 2006, UMSL, p. 2