Overvaluation: an Obstacle to Dialogue

• Authors: Lloyd Steffen
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This paper offers a critical analysis of an obstacle to dialogue—“overvaluation.” Drawing on Immanuel Kant’s analysis of religious fanaticism as a contradictory and irrational attempt to access the supersensible by sensible means, this paper argues that overvaluation can, at its extreme, suppress prudential reasoning and other-regardingness and render dialogue impossible. Dialogue is an ideal of philosophical discourse that counters the negative prospects of extreme overvaluation. Dialogue is sustained by respect for others; it affirms self-regard in human relationships; and it resists absolutist thought, which is finally overvaluation detached from reasonableness, by being open to change and to the possibility of new understanding.

Keywords

EN

Values; dialogue; love; passion; overvaluation; fanaticism; Immanuel Kant; John Locke; Santayana; R. M. Hare; mysticism; religious extremism; terrorism; passive illumination

• Publisher: Instytut Filozofii i Socjologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk; Fundacja Filozofia Na Rzecz Dialogu
• Journal: Dialogue and Universalism
• Year: 2017
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 7-21

Contributors

author

Lloyd Steffen

• Lehigh University, 661 Taylor Street, Bethlehem, PA 18015 USA