Abstract

VENTER, J.J. (Ponti). Pragmatism attacking Christianity as weakness - Methodologies of targeting. Koers (Online) [online]. 2013, vol.78, n.2, pp.05-16. ISSN 2304-8557.

The central argument is that methods are designed with aims in mind, and are determined by one's worldview and/or ontology and/or philosophical anthropology and/or views of scholarship. It is possible, and here shown by analysis of the methodology of William James, that obsession with a cause, driven by the elitist belief that my cause is for everybody's advantage, can take an ideological format (a formalistic ideology), in which case it would show tendencies to polarise. In the case of James the scientistic methodology takes as primary target Christianity's meekness and kindness as humanitarianly ineffective. But James suffers from the problem of intellectual solipsism: reading Christianity via abstract rationalist theology.

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