Inclusivism of P. Hacker: The Reception of G. Oberhammer

Abstract

This article examines the concept of inclusivism by Paul Hacker on the basis of one of his last articles dedicated to the problem of correlation between concepts “inclusivism”, “tolerance” and “intolerance”. This concept approaches the prob­lem of relationship between religions by implying that only one religion com­prises the absolute truth while it remains achievable to some extent at least for some other religions. P. Hacker developed his own conception and used the ex­ample of Indian religions to show the relationship between the notions of “inclu­sivism” and “tolerance” and argued that inclusivism is a form of thinking charac­teristic for Indian culture. P. Hacker defends the idea that what is referred to as tolerance in Western studies relating to Indian culture is not exactly tolerance but a fundamentally different way of thinking. This conception has attracted the at­tention of many Indologists including Gerhard Oberhammer who thoroughly an­alyzed the notion of inclusivism in relation to religious texts of Hinduism. Ac­cording to G. Oberhammer, the theory of P. Hacker includes propositions that could be interpreted ambivalently and require additional explanation. This article summarizes one of Paul Hacker’s latest works, analyzes Gerhard Oberhammer’s perception of his conception, reveals the main critical theses which were pro­posed and summarizes Gerhard Oberhammer’s own views on this conception.