The ‘other’ as (Not) Das Fremde: Mysticism, Dialogue, and the Hermeneutics of Entanglement

Ikenna Paschal Okpaleke

The ‘other’ as (Not) Das Fremde

Mysticism, Dialogue, and the Hermeneutics of Entanglement

Authors

Ikenna Paschal Okpaleke Université Catholique de Louvain

Keywords:

Mysticism, Dialogue, Identity, Difference, The ‘other’, Das Fremde, Hermeneutics, Entanglement

Abstract

Mysticism as a religious phenomenon could serve to foster dialogue both at the intra-religious and inter-religious levels. But the question of the where to locate the connection between dialogue and mysticism remains to be answered. This article investigates this relationship by focusing attention on what the German intercultural philosopher Bernhard Wandenfels refers to as Das Fremde, namely the ‘other’ as alien. Interestingly, this ‘other’ functions only within what one might refer to as hermeneutics of entanglement – of identity and difference, which taken further could be defined as an ‘existential mysticism’. Along the line of this argument, this article proposes a link between mysticism and dialogue through a phenomenological cum theological analysis of the identity of the ‘other’ as Das Fremde.

Author Biography

Ikenna Paschal Okpaleke, Université Catholique de Louvain

Ikenna Paschal Okpaleke, SThD, PhD, is a Catholic priest from Nigeria, and the author ofEcumenical and Interreligious Identities in Nigeria: Transformation through Dialogue, by the Lexington Press. Dr. Okpaleke lectures in Catholic ecclesiology and ecumenism at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies (THER) at the Université Catholique de Louvain. He is also a member of the Research Institute of Religions, Spiritualities, Cultures, Societies (RSCS).

The ‘other’ as (Not) Das Fremde: Mysticism, Dialogue, and the Hermeneutics of Entanglement