From Religious Realism to Pragmatism: Rethinking the Foundations of Hickian Pluralism

One of the most prominent defenders of religious pluralism is John Hick, who developed a theoretical pluralist model on the foundation of a hypothesized the Real an sich. This paper argues that although Hick is right in noticing the importance of the metaphysical meaning of religious pluralism, his model is epistemically unstable because of the circularity problem caused by his persistence on pre-existing religious truth, which itself is meaningless. Drawing on pragmatist insights, especially from William James, this paper proposes a pragmatist alternative that abandons religious realism and instead grounds pluralist normativity in the practical, melioristic functions of religious belief.