Lahore University of Management Sciences. REL 313 Rationality and Tradition

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1 REL 313 Rationality and Tradition Spring 2018 Instructor Nauman Faizi Room No. 239-D Office Hours Wednesdays: pm (Fall 2017) Telephone Ext: 2324 TA TBD TA Office Hours TBD Course Basics Credit Hours 4 Lecture(s) Nbr of Lec(s) Per Week 2 Duration 110 minutes each Course Distribution Core Elective Open for Student Category No Yes All COURSE DESCRIPTION There is no standing ground, no place for enquiry, no way to engage in the practices of advancing, evaluating, accepting, and rejecting reasoned argument apart from that which is provided by some particular tradition or the other Alisdair MacIntyre Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Alisdair MacIntyre (1929 ), one of the most significant philosophic voices engaged by contemporary scholars of religion, unwaveringly argues throughout his corpus that rationality is always context-and-tradition specific. This course aims to lead students through sustained reflection on this claim as MacIntyre makes it in his magnum opus, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Thinking about rationality as context-and-tradition-specific opens up several pressing questions: How is it possible to evaluate claims offered by different and competing traditions? How is it possible to sustain the notion of truth if reasoning is contextual? Once history, contingency, and tradition are admitted as necessary elements of practices of reasoning, is relativism not inevitable? Can we arrive at some neutral ground on which we could evaluate different modes of reasoning? This course will take students through MacIntyre s navigation of these pressing questions in three parts. The first part of the course introduces students to MacIntyre s extremely influential conceptualization of tradition as an argument extended through time and his claim that there is no such thing as a rationality that is not the rationality of some tradition. Students will work through various illustrations in Whose Justice? Which Rationality? through which MacIntyre argues for the entanglement of reasoning and the context of reasoning. The second module will allow students to wrestle with one of the central questions animating Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Namely, if it is true that reasoning is tradition-and-context-specific, how

2 can competing and rival claims, launched from different contexts be evaluated, debated, and mediated? Students will learn how MacIntyre thinks about and handles the challenge of relativism that inevitably pops up when truth-claims are argued as context-dependent. The third part of the course will take students through MacIntyre s critique of (and polemic against!) disembodied and ahistorical ways of thinking about rationality. Here students will encounter and interrogate Whose Justice? Which Rationality? s claim that the search for a non-contextual, ahistorical space for resolving disagreements between rival and competing conceptions of rationality is, ultimately, chimerical. Apart from involving students in key questions and debates surrounding these issues, this course will also introduce them to how MacIntyre has been deployed by critics and interlocutors including Jeffrey Stout, Talal Asad, Samira Hajj, and Stanley Hauerwas. COURSE PREREQUISITE(S) None COURSE OBJECTIVES To train students to sustain and enrich their engagement with a finite set of arguments in a multifaceted way throughout the course of a semester Train students in strategies of close and critical reading in relation to scholarly work on religion, both in the shape of journal articles and monographs To enable and encourage students to take more advanced courses in the study of religion, both as undergraduates and (potential) graduate students To aid students in making methodologically self-aware and contextually circumscribed arguments in relation to the assigned reading material Grading Breakup and Policy Class Participation: 10% Attendance: 5% Assignments: 25% Midterm Essay: 25% Final Essay: 35%

3 Course Overview Lahore University of Management Sciences Session 1 Introduction to the Course No assigned Reading Part I: The Rationality of Traditions Session 2 Session 3 An interview for Cogito in The MacIntyre Reader Rival Justices, Competing Rationalities in Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Session 4 A Disquieting Suggestion, in After Virtue Session 5 Thinking About Tradition, Religion, and Politics in Egypt Today, Talal Asad in Critical Inquiry Session 6 Justice and Action in the Homeric Imagination, in Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Session 7 Continued: Justice and Action in the Homeric Imagination, in Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Session 8 Plato and Rational Inquiry, in Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Session 9 Aristotle as Plato s Heir, in Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Session 10 The Augustinian Alternative, in Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Session 11 Continued: The Augustinian Alternative, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Part II: Competing Traditions, Competing Rationalities Session 12 MacIntyre, Alisdair. "Epistemological crises, dramatic narrative and the philosophy of science." The Monist (1977): Session 13 Continued: MacIntyre, Alisdair. "Epistemological crises, dramatic narrative and the philosophy of science." The Monist (1977): Session 14 Aquinas on Practical Rationality and Justice, in Whose Justice? Which Rationality?

4 Session 15 Continued: Aquinas on Practical Rationality and Justice, in Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Session 16 Introduction and Conclusion in Reconfiguring Islamic Tradition: Reform, Rationality, and Modernity by Samira Hajj Session 17 Continued: Introduction and Conclusion in Reconfiguring Islamic Tradition: Reform, Rationality, and Modernity by Samira Hajj Session 18 The Rationality of Traditions, in Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Session 19 Continued: The Rationality of Traditions, in Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Part III: Reasoning from Nowhere and Everywhere Session 20 Contested Justices, Contested Rationalities, in Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Session 21 Continued: Contested Justices, Contested Rationalities, in Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Session 22 Tradition and Translation, in Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Session 23 Continued: Tradition and Translation, in Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Session 24 Why the Enlightenment Project of Justifying Morality Had to Fail, in After Virtue Session 25 Introduction, in Democracy and Tradition by Jeffrey Stout Session 26 The New Traditionalism, in Democracy and Tradition by Jeffrey Stout Session 27 Selections from The Stanley Hauerwas Reader TBA Session 28 Recap and Review

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