Abstract

This dissertation argues for a genealogical hermeneutics that can account for the challenge of feminist and postcolonial insights on the interest-laden nature of knowledge production when applied to Comparative Philosophy and Comparative Religion. Genealogical hermeneutics integrates Michel Foucault’s genealogy and Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutics and contributes to new scholarship that explores a complementary approach between the two thinkers. In the process, it elaborates on the hermeneutic structure of comparison. It traces the history of Comparative Philosophy and finds that contemporary comparison retains elements or features from problematic discourses of the nineteenth-century. Exploring some contemporary issues facing Comparative Philosophy and Religion (for example, the problem of multiculturalism, the indeterminacy of the categories of religion and philosophy, and Eurocentrism in comparison) reveals the necessity of taking feminism and postcolonialism seriously as resources for understanding how comparative knowledge is connected to power relations. It addresses the issue of the complicity of knowledge and power in comparison by connecting genealogical hermeneutics to social justice and intersectionality—and in the process opens a space for new ways of comparing. It concludes by providing possibilities for new directions for Comparative Philosophy and Comparative Religion.