John Dewey'in Naturalistik Din Anlayışı

Year 2019, Volume: 18 Issue: 36, 337 - 362, 30.12.2019

Abdulkadir Tanış İlhami Çıtır

https://doi.org/10.14395/hititilahiyat.581966

Cited By: 1

Abstract

 Pragmatizmin
önde gelen isimlerinden biri olan John Dewey, Ortak Bir İman adlı
eserinde din hakkındaki görüşlerini detaylıca ifade etmiştir. Temel olarak
natüralistik bir bakış açısından hareketle dini ele alan Dewey, konu hakkındaki
görüşlerini din ve dinsel arasında öngördüğü ayrıma dayandırmaktadır. Burada
din, bir dinin belirli inanç veya pratikler kümesini ya da bu inanç ve
pratikler etrafında şekillenmiş olan kurumsal yapıyı dile getirmektedir. Buna
karşın, dinsel, yaşamdaki bütün insani ideal amaçlara yönelik benimsenebilecek
bir tutumu ifade etmektedir. Onun ileri sürdüğü görüşün özü, dinî olanı daha
ziyade doğaüstüyle özdeş gören tarihsel din, kurum veya öğretilerin reddedilmesi,
bu sayede tecrübedeki dinsel öğelerin, tarihsel dinlerin getirdiği inanç, dogma
vb. öğelerin yükünden özgürlüğe kavuşturulmasıdır. Dolayısıyla, o, doğaüstüne
başvurulmadan dinî tecrübenin doğal dünyanın olumsal koşulları içerisinde
yorumlanması gerektiğini savunmaktadır. Bu çalışmada, Dewey’in din konusundaki
iddiaları eleştirel bir bakışla analiz edilecektir. Bunun için öncelikle onun
din konusundaki görüşleri betimsel olarak detaylı bir şekilde ortaya konulacak
ve daha sonra bunların değeri tartışılacaktır. İlk olarak, din ve Tanrı
konusundaki görüşleri geleneksel teist ve realist anlayışlarla
karşılaştırıldığında Dewey’in bir teist veya realist olarak
değerlendirilemeyeceği ifade edilecektir. İkinci olarak, görüşleri her ne kadar
geleneksel realist veya teist anlayışlar bağlamında yorumlanmaya müsait olmasa
da, onun tam anlamıyla anti-realist veya ateist bir bakış açısına sahip
olmadığı daha ziyade orta yolcu bir noktada durduğu iddia edilecektir

Keywords

John Dewey, Din Felsefesi, Pragmatism, Naturalistik Din Anlayışı, Tanrı Tasavvuru, John Dewey

John Dewey’s Naturalistic Conception of Religion

Abstract

One of the
leading figures in pragmatism, John Dewey expresses his views on religion in
his A Common Faith. From a naturalistic perspective, he builds his views
about religion on the distinction which he has made between religion and
religious. The religion refers to a particular body of beliefs or practices of
a religion or the institutional structure formed around these beliefs and
practices. In contrast, the religious means an attitude that can be adopted
towards all human ideal ends in the life. Basically, his view is the rejection
of historical religions, institutions or teachings that identify the religious
with supernatural, and thus is to liberate the religious elements of experience
from encumbrances such beliefs, dogmas which come from historical religions.
Therefore, he argues that religious experience should be interpreted within the
contingent conditions of the natural world without referring to the
supernatural. In this study, Dewey’s claims on religion will be analyzed
critically. For this purpose, his views on religion will be presented
descriptively in detail and then their value will be discussed. Firstly, we
will claim that Dewey cannot be considered as a theist or realist when his
views on religion and God are compared with traditional theist and realist
approaches. Secondly, although his views cannot be considered in a realist or
theist approach, we will argue that he also has not a purely anti-realist or
atheist point of view, but rather he adopts a middle way.                    

Summary

John Dewey, a
prominent figure in pragmatism, makes important claims on religion and God in
his A Common Faith. Dewey’s views on the subject is based on the
distinction between “religion” as a substantive noun and “religious” as an
adjective which points to the quality of experience. According to the
distinction, while religion refers to beliefs, practices and institutions,
religious designates an attitude that can be adopted towards whole existence,
objects and ideal ends. So it is possible to express religious as a modus of
experience. Dewey’s basic thesis is to leave aside any religion or
institutional structure that bases on supernatural and to evaluate the
religious quality of experience within the contingent conditions of the natural
world. According to him, when historical religions or institutions are
rejected, the value of religious experience will be understood more
appropriately since it will liberate from encumbrances such beliefs, doctrines
and dogmas which come from historical religions. He argues that the
identification of religion with belief in supernatural will inevitably lead to
a distinction between religious and secular. When religion is confined in a
particular compartment, this leads to the division mind and energy of religious
person. As a result, religious believer will not use his energy for social ends
and ideals since he gives priority to supernatural.

Dewey links
the religious quality of experience with its function and asserts that this
function is a permanent and profound harmony of the self, both among its
components and with the world. According to him, the permanent and profound
harmony of the self, both among its components and with the world, is
essentially an ideal because it requires the self to extend beyond itself and the
real world. Therefore, it is possible to say that religious is basically ideal.
In contrast to a constant and determined the realm of existence, the ideal
means potentials or possibilities that do not exist in fact. The foundation for
enhancing one’s ideals is the imagination power which human beings have. Based
on this, Dewey defines God as “the unity of all ideal ends arousing us to
desire and actions.” When we recall that the source of ideal ends is
imagination, the idea of God will be the product of imagination.

This brings us
to the most controversial point in Dewey’s thought of religion or God. For his
claim that the idea of God is a product of human imagination led to many his
commentators to interpret his views in an atheistic or secular way. Firstly, it
should be expressed obviously that he rejects traditional realist approaches.
For he does not accept the idea of God as a fixed or constant entity beyond the
physical and social world, independent of human ends and ideals. Considering
that traditional theistic view bases on such a realist approach, it can readily
be said that Dewey will not adopt a theistic idea of God. Indeed, he repeatedly
states that approaches that identify the religion with supernatural must be
rejected. Secondly, as we have stated, many commentators who consider these
claims interpret his views in a completely naturalistic or secular way, placing
him in an anti-realist or atheistic position. However, it is possible to say
that these comments fail for a few reasons. First, Dewey expresses that his
goal is not merely to provide a purely naturalistic explanation of religious
experience or to deny its importance for life. Second, if his goal is to
provide a purely naturalistic explanation of religious experience, then why
does he continue to employ religious concepts such as God or Divine? Third, he
is well aware that his views may be misunderstood: “The view I have advanced is
sometimes treated as if the identification of the divine with ideal ends left
the ideal wholly without roots in existence and without support from
existence.” And he emphasizes strongly that the identification of God with the
possibilities within nature, rather than a realm of entity beyond nature, does
not mean that God is an idea that exists only in human imagination. Given these
reasons, although his views cannot be considered in a realist or theist
approach, it can be argued that he also has not a purely anti-realist or
atheist point of view, but rather he adopts a middle way.    

Keywords

Philosophy of Religion, Pragmatism, Naturalistic Conception of Religion, Concept, john Dewey

References

• Dewey, John. A Common Faith, 2. Basım. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013.
• James, William. “The Will to Believe”. Pragmatism and Other Writings. ed. Giles Gunn. 198-218. New York: Penguin Books, 2000.
• James, William. Pragmatizm: Kimi Eski Düşünme Biçimleri İçin Yeni Bir İsim, trc. Tahir Karakaş. İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2015.
• James, William. Dinsel Deneyimin Çeşitleri: İnsan Doğası Üzerine Bir İnceleme, trc. İsmail Hakkı Yılmaz. İstanbul: Pinhan Yayıncılık, 2017.
• Rosenow, Eliyahu. “The Teacher as Prophet of the True God: Dewey’s Religious Faith and its Problems”. Journal of Philosophy of Education 31/3 (1997): 427-437.
• Tanış, Abdulkadir. “İnanma İradesi: William James’in İmanın Pragmatik Savunusu Üzerine Bir Değerlendirme”. Dini Araştırmalar 19/48 (2016): 179-202.