Panel: MINORITY, INEQUALITY, AND THE POLITICS OF RELIGION AND THEOLOGY



555.7 - "FIRST-PERSON´S EXPERIENCE" FEMINIST, DISABILITY, QUEER AND TRANS HERMENEUTICS. PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS FOR THEOLOGIES

AUTHORS:
Wozna Urbanczak A.M. (Bergische Universität Wuppertal ~ Wuppertal ~ Germany)
Text:
In this paper a discussion is raised how to conceptualize a wide range of the first- person experiences of different people who describe phenomenologically their condition of queer, transgender or feminist or person with disabilities in order to reach a general status of hermeneutical recognition. In hermeneutic studies, as philosophy or theology, some kind of universalization is needed in order the discourse to appeal to the scientific community and to be representative. In theology, specifically, the sensus fidei requires years (if not centuries) of debate to reach agreements and to adapt it as an ordinary doctrine. (Ricoeur, 2016). In light of these difficulties and assuming that theology needs sciences and sciences need theology and philosophy, the first question would be: How to deal with apories that appear between these two approaches in a world that moves epistemologically fast but need also a serenity in the judgement of the knowledge? We will take some examples to illustrate these apories that would come from these sciences themselves. Queer and transgender methodologies seem to explore and make the most of the concept of "experience" and face the problem that the first-person methodologies may be taken as relativist, hermeneutically invalid. The second question raises: How to design such kind of hermeneutics that can maintain the freshness of a singular (Keller, 2019) experience and are able to be conceptualized in the hermeneutic universe of the scientific community? (Kuhn, 1962). The aim is to reach some insights in terms of possibilities of mutual intersections between first-person experience methodologies and social-hermeneutical methodologies. The test would consist in searching if some these could apply to fundamental theology topics and in which way. Methodologically implicit biases in ethics (Browstein, 2016), the second-person approach (Halsema- Slatmann, 2017) and interdisciplinary approaches upon the decision making will be addressed.