In 20th-century pluralist theology, even ‘enlightened’ theologians like Winston L. King could not quite shake their Western assumptions: despite much dialogue with Buddhists, he persisted in trying to describe Buddhism in terms of quintessential Christian ideas like faith, grace and salvation.
Philosophy, too, has its strong cultural assumptions. Contemporary philosophy in the West has been described as “narrow-minded, unimaginative, and even xenophobic”, relegating thought traditions of other parts of the globe to the spheres of religion or ‘traditional wisdom’. That the proponents of philosophy in the academies are very largely white, straight, cisgender men may have something to do with this…
