Patrick M. Foster

One of the major intellectual paradigms of the 20th century--the paradigm of the symbol--has been, not a good heuristic for the organizing and understanding of knowledge as is generally believed, but on the contrary a heuristically poor model that confuses and obfuscates and in addition has had disastrous consequences for 20th-century thought. ;The most unfortunate effect has been the shift from concern for truth to concern for meaning. This abandonment of the concept of truth involves a shift from objectivity; to subjectivity, a shift from truth to values, the relativizing of naturalistic truths, the abandonment of critique , a shift from philosophical theories of realism to theories of relativism, pragmatism, and instrumentalism, and a shift in methodology from philosophical analysis to phenomenology and hermeneutics. ;To describe the symbol paradigm I will look at its history in three ways: in its general modern evolution, in the development of its semantic, and in the actual shift from truth to meaning. Key figures discussed are Kant, Cassirer, Langer, Saussure, Husserl, Wittgenstein, Austin, Kuhn, Rorty, three postmoderns , and their followers among religious scholars. ;After an historical sketch and characterization, the symbol paradigm is critiqued in terms of its heuristic value, its truth value, and its effects. The important symbolisms of language and religion will be analyzed here. ;A thorough critique leaves us in a vacuum. A new paradigm is suggested to fill this void: a paradigm of truth. Truth as vision, goal, issue, problem. It is realist, objective, fallibilist, assumes a viable correspondence theory, and values truth over tradition, dogma, and security. It is thus anti-hermeneutical, anti-instrumental, anti-postmodern. ;The truth paradigm's modus operandi is criticism--philosophy's traditional role. The last chapter suggests a revitalization of the philosophy of religion in which critique of religious traditions and critique of the study of religion play primary roles.