Reality’s Fugue

Reconciling Worldviews in Philosophy, Religion, and Science

F. Samuel Brainard

• Publisher: Penn State University Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780271080574
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Comparative Religion

Science, religion, philosophy: these three categories of thought have organized humankind's search for meaning from time immemorial. Reality's Fugue presents a compelling case that these ways of understanding, often seen as competing, are part of a larger puzzle that cannot be rendered by one account of reality alone.

This book begins with an overview of the concept of reality and the philosophical difficulties associated with attempts to account for it through any single worldview. By clarifying the differences among first-person, third-person, and dualist understandings of reality, F. Samuel Brainard repurposes the three predominant ways of making sense of those differences: exclusionist (only one worldview can be right), inclusivist (viewing other worldviews through the lens of one in order to incorporate them all, and thus distorting them), and pluralist or relativist (holding that there are no universals, and truth is relative). His alternative mode of understanding uses Douglas Hofstadter's metaphor of a musical fugue that allows different "voices" and "melodies" of worldviews to coexist in counterpoint and conversation, while each remains distinct, with none privileged above the others. Approaching reality in this way, Brainard argues, opens up the possibility for a multivoiced perspective that can overcome the skeptical challenges that metaphysical positions face.

Engagingly argued by a lifelong scholar of philosophy and global religions, this edifying and accessible exploration of the nature of reality addresses deeply meaningful questions about belief, reconciliation, and being.

Table of contents

• COVER front
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Predicament
• Notes on Chapter 1
• Chapter 2: Two Views of Reality
• Notes on Chapter 2
• Chapter 3: Universals and Particulars
• Notes on Chapter 3
• Chapter 4: Hinduism and the Third-Person View
• Notes on Chapter 4
• Chapter 5: Awareness and Its Objects
• Notes on Chapter 5
• Chapter 6: Buddhism and the First-Person View
• Notes on Chapter 6
• Chapter 7: The Dualism of Everyday Reality
• Notes on Chapter 7
• Chapter 8: Western Theism and the Dualist View
• Notes on Chapter 8
• Chapter 9: Awareness’s Two Roles
• Notes on Chapter 9
• Chapter 10: Artifacts of Awareness
• Notes on Chapter 10
• Chapter 11: Physical Reality
• Notes to Chapter 11
• Chapter 12: Religions Revisited
• Notes to Chapter 12
• Postscript 1: Scale as a Dimension of Reality
• Notes to Postscript 1
• Postscript 2: Definition for Truth
• Notes to Postscript 2
• Acknowledgments
• Terms Defined in This Book
• Glossary of Hindu and Buddhist Terms
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index