All are welcome to attend this seminar! The session consists of two presentations each followed by a Q&A session.
This week's presentations:
Mustafa Khuramy - level 6 Philosophy
Title: On a dilemma for relaxed realists
Abstract: Relaxed realism is a theory that purports to have all the advantages of traditional non-naturalist moral theories while avoiding all of the metaphysical objections raised against it, a theory that aspires to be ‘metaphysically light’. That, however, sounds like expressivism. But, relaxed realists insist that they are not expressivists because of their commitment to cognitivism, the view that moral judgments are truth-apt. Recently, Böddeling (2020) has argued that relaxed realists face a decisive dilemma: either they understand their cognitivism in a minimal sense, thereby making them unable to distinguish themselves from expressivists, or they understand their cognitivism in a robust sense, which makes their view ‘metaphysically heavy’. In this talk, I'll argue that relaxed realists can avoid this dilemma by adopting a novel account of metaphysical weight developed through the lens of truthmaker theory. This account allows relaxed realists to maintain that it is their cognitivism that sets them apart from expressivists, and doing so does not prevent their view from being metaphysically light.
Tushar Shah - visiting lecturer at the UH Philosophy department
Title: 'The Guru Never Leaves the Earth': Doctrine, Encounter, and the Transfer of Devotion in BAPS
Abstract: Pramukh Swami Maharaj, guru of the BAPS Swaminarayan tradition for 45 years, passed away on 13th August 2016. A letter he had written in 2012 named Mahant Swami Maharaj as his successor, and within days millions witnessed the formal transfer of spiritual authority. The tradition's theology holds that the guru is not merely a leader but the manifest form of an eternal metaphysical reality ensuring that succession is understood not as replacement but as re-embodiment: the form changes but the manifestation remains the same. Against scholarship that identifies guru succession as an inherently precarious moment for religious movements, I argue that BAPS's doctrinal architecture provided the grammar within which the transition could be understood, but that devotees still had to arrive at conviction through their own experience. Institutionally, I analyse the theological apparatus and authorised narratives that framed the succession within the tradition's metaphysics. Ethnographically, through interviews with practitioners, I trace the movement many devotees described: from accepting the continuity claim on institutional authority, to recognising it as true through firsthand encounter with the new guru, particularly as he travelled to meet communities worldwide. I examine the mechanisms that enabled this convergence of doctrine and experience, the role attributed to the deceased guru as an active agent in preparing devotees for transition, and the cases where the process proved more fraught. I conclude by considering what the BAPS case suggests about the relationship between doctrinal pre-commitment and experiential corroboration in sustaining religious authority across succession.