The Future of the Philosophy of Religion PDF Download

Author: Wesley J. Wildman
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438432372
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 403

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Book Description
What can philosophy contribute to the study of religion? This book argues that the study of religion needs philosophy in the form of multidisciplinary comparative inquiry. Contradicting the current tendency to regard philosophical reflection and the academic study of religion as independent endeavors best kept apart, Wesley J. Wildman brings them together, offering a broader vision than that of traditional "philosophy of religion" and surmounting many of its difficulties. His newer conception of "religious philosophy" is well suited to the modern, multicultural, secular university. Through multidisciplinary comparative inquiry, religious philosophy allows for a variety of approaches—from historical and analytical work to evocative description and theoretical evaluation of truth claims—and both secular and religious thinkers participate. The tasks and varieties of religious philosophy as they arc across the world's religions and philosophies are discussed along with religious philosophy's modern and postmodern contexts. Wildman's thoughtful and thought-provoking book will be essential reading for all those concerned with the study of religion, present and future.

Author: Clayton Crockett
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253013933
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
What is the future of Continental philosophy of religion? These forward-looking essays address the new thinkers and movements that have gained prominence since the generation of Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault, and Levinas and how they will reshape Continental philosophy of religion in the years to come. They look at the ways concepts such as liberation, sovereignty, and post-colonialism have engaged this new generation with political theology and the new pathways of thought that have opened in the wake of speculative realism and recent findings in neuroscience and evolutionary psychology. Readers will discover new directions in this challenging and important area of philosophical inquiry.

Author: M. David Eckel
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030446069
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
This collection of essays on the philosophy of religion and its future brings together accomplished thinkers across several related fields, from comparative philosophy to analytic and continental philosophy of religion and beyond. Contributing authors address pressing questions including: Where does philosophy stand in relation to religion and the study of religion in the 21st century? How ought the philosophy of religion to interact with religious studies and theology to make for fruitful interdisciplinary engagement? And what does philosophy uniquely have to offer to the broad discourse on religion in the modern world? Through exploring these questions and more, the authors’ goal is not that of meeting the philosophical future, but of forging it. Readers will enter a vivid conversation through engaging essays which demonstrate the importance of disciplinary openness and show that we do not need to sacrifice depth in order to achieve breadth. Modernity and postmodernity come together in a constantly evolving discussion that moves the philosophy of religion forward, while keeping an eye toward the experience accumulated in past centuries. This book will interest students of philosophy, theology, religious studies, and other fields that wonder about the place of philosophy and religion in today’s world. It also has much to offer advanced scholars in these fields, through its breadth and forward thinking.

Author: Roberto Mangabeira Unger
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1784787302
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 478

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Book Description
A new philosophy of religion for a secular world How can we live in such a way that we die only once? How can we organize a society that gives us a better chance to be fully alive? How can we reinvent religion so that it liberates us instead of consoling us? These questions stand at the center of Roberto Mangabeira Unger’s The Religion of the Future: an argument for both spiritual and political revolution. It proposes the content of a religion that can survive without faith in a transcendent God or in life after death. According to this religion—the religion of the future—human beings can be more human by becoming more godlike, not just later, in another life or another time, but right now, on Earth and in their own lives. They can become more godlike without denying the irreparable flaws in the human condition: our mortality, groundlessness, and insatiability.

Author: Jim Kanaris
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 1438469098
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Explores the place and meaning of philosophy of religion in our current poststructuralist, postsecular, postcolonialist context. This collection addresses, as it exemplifies, an identity crisis in contemporary philosophy of religion. It represents a unique two-way dialogue between philosophers of religion and scholars of religion and broaches issues pertaining to the philosophy of religion and the philosophical tradition, on the one hand, and religious studies, theology, and the modern academy on the other. While each author manages the current challenges in philosophy of religion differently, one can nonetheless discern a polyphony of interests surrounding a postcritical, postsecular appreciation of religion. In part 1, contributors ask how philosophy of religion can accommodate both the strengths and weaknesses of Western analytic and continental traditions; incorporate developments in ideology critique, gender studies, and Asian philosophies; and negotiate the perceived stalemate in philosophy of religion. Part 2 addresses these questions in terms of a philosophy of religion that is postcolonial in intention and multidisciplinary in orientation and features scholarship from the fields of both religion and theology. An underlying theme is the importance of ushering philosophy of religion into a postphenomenological era of religious studies and theology. This is a neglected dimension in many laudable discussions about philosophy of religion that this volume hopes to emend. “This gathering of important voices and the differences of approach and opinion that they represent invites/provokes reflection, self-examination by philosophers of religion, and further work.” — Jeffrey Dudiak, author of The Intrigue of Ethics: A Reading of the Idea of Discourse in the Thought of Emmanuel Levinas

Author: Hent de Vries
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
ISBN: 0823227243
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 1024

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Book Description
What do we talk about when we talk about "religion"? Is it an array of empirical facts about historical human civilizations? Or is religion what is in essence unpredictable--perhaps the very emergence of the new? In what ways are the legacies of religion--its powers, words, things, and gestures--reconfiguring themselves as the elementary forms of life in the twenty-first century? Given the Latin roots of the word religion and its historical Christian uses, what sense, if any, does it make to talk about "religion" in other traditions? Where might we look for common elements that would enable us to do so? Has religion as an overarching concept lost all its currency, or does it ineluctably return--sometimes in unexpected ways--the moment we attempt to do without it? This book explores the difficulties and double binds that arise when we ask "What is religion?" Offering a marvelously rich and diverse array of perspectives, it begins the task of rethinking "religion" and "religious studies" in a contemporary world. Opening essays on the question "What is religion?" are followed by clusters exploring the relationships among religion, theology, and philosophy and the links between religion, politics, and law. Pedagogy is the focus of the following section. Religion is then examined in particular contexts, from classical times to the present Pentacostal revival, leading into an especially rich set of essays on religion, materiality, and mediatization. The final section grapples with the ever-changing forms that "religion" is taking, such as spirituality movements and responses to the ecological crisis. Featuring the work of leading scholars from a wide array of disciplines, traditions, and cultures, Religion: Beyond a Concept will help set the agenda for religious studies for years to come. It is the first of five volumes in a collection entitled The Future of the Religious Past, the fruit of a major international research initiative funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.

Author: Helmut Wautischer
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400722222
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
Karl Jaspers, who died in 1969, had a profound impact on 20th-century theology and philosophy. His central thesis called for, among other things, a de-centering of philosophy from its Eurocentric roots and a renewal of its dialogue with other traditions, especially Asian ones. This collection of essays includes unpublished work by Jaspers himself as well as testimonies to his life and career by colleagues, associates, and translators, some of who knew Jaspers personally. Readers will also find commentary and interpretation by researchers who have explored Jaspers’ work for decades, and a biographical account of Jaspers’ student Leonard Ehrlich, who handled much of Jaspers’ English translation. The book interrogates Jaspers’ conceptions of ‘philosophical faith’, his philosophy of communication, and the prospects for world philosophy in the future. Focusing on philosophical faith, it assesses Jaspers’ interpretations of key philosophers such as Kant, Hegel, Schelling, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Rosenzweig, as well as examining his personal relationships with Bultmann and Heidegger. Contributors also look at Jaspers’ philosophies of religion and history, his hypothesis of the ‘axial age’ (Achsenzeit), and his contributions to metaphysics, periechontology, and economics. Finally, chapters cover Jaspers’ philosophy of communication and world history. The latter are informed by a burgeoning interest in Kantian ‘Freiheitphilosophie’ that influenced Jaspers, as well as concerns over the future of humanity. These concerns in part account for Jaspers’ growing popularity in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Central/South America, and Asia. Also included are lucid clarifications of the difference between religious and philosophical faith, and the relevance of certainty, trust, and communication for a future of mankind. Trained as a psychiatrist, Jaspers practiced this profession before becoming a philosopher and thus had a keen insight into the workings of the human mind even as he challenged the philosophical establishment of his time. It is perhaps this depth to his background that adds to the contemporary relevance of his work.

Author: Richard Rorty
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231509103
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 108

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Book Description
Though coming from different and distinct intellectual traditions, Richard Rorty and Gianni Vattimo are united in their criticism of the metaphysical tradition. The challenges they put forward extend beyond philosophy and entail a reconsideration of the foundations of belief in God and the religious life. They urge that the rejection of metaphysical truth does not necessitate the death of religion; instead it opens new ways of imagining what it is to be religious—ways that emphasize charity, solidarity, and irony. This unique collaboration, which includes a dialogue between the two philosophers, is notable not only for its fusion of pragmatism (Rorty) and hermeneutics (Vattimo) but also for its recognition of the limits of both traditional religious belief and modern secularism. In "Anticlericalism and Atheism" Rorty discusses Vattimo's work Belief and argues that the end of metaphysics paves the way for an anti-essentialist religion. Rorty's conception of religion, determined by private motives, is designed to produce the gospel's promise that henceforth God will not consider humanity as a servant but as a friend. In "The Age of Interpretation," Vattimo, who is both a devout Catholic and a frequent critic of the church, explores the surprising congruence between Christianity and hermeneutics in light of the dissolution of metaphysical truth. As in hermeneutics, interpretation is central to Christianity, which introduced the world to the principle of interiority, dissolving the experience of objective reality into "listening to and interpreting messages." The lively dialogue that concludes this volume, moderated and edited by Santiago Zabala, analyzes the future of religion together with the political, social, and historical aspects that characterize our contemporary postmodern, postmetaphysical, and post-Christian world.

Author: Roland Faber
Publisher: Anthem Press
ISBN: 1783089873
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 443

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Book Description
‘The Ocean of God’conveys the proposition that the future of religions, if they will not want to contribute to the destruction of humanity, will become transreligious. Based on the assumption that the spiritual impulse of humanity cannot simply be eradicated, religiosity will persist in transreligious forms, as secularizations, naturalizations and transhumanist dreams only envision such transformations, but fall short in their ability to replace the force of spirituality to further civilized peace of human existence on Earth and its future in evolutionary, ecological and cosmological dimensions. In relating the contributions of religious pluralism to the concept of the unity of religions, which have arisen in this “new axial age” for overcoming the checkered history of religions in furthering peace, the program of a polyphilic pluralism with its transreligious discourse, based on the insight of the fundamental relativity of (religious) truth and the special contributions of process philosophy and theology as well as the Bahá'í universe of thought, analyses and projects a new religiosity or spirit enabling religions to overcome their deepest motives of strife and warfare.

Author: Timothy D. Knepper
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319641654
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
This collection of essays is an exercise in comparative philosophy of religion that explores the different ways in which humans express the inexpressible. It brings together scholars of over a dozen religious, literary, and artistic traditions, as part of The Comparison Project's 2013-15 lecture and dialogue series on "religion beyond words." Specialist scholars first detailed the grammars of ineffability in nine different religious traditions as well as the adjacent fields of literature, poetry, music, and art. The Comparison Project's directors then compared this diverse set of phenomena, offering explanations for their patterning, and raising philosophical questions of truth and value about religious ineffability in comparative perspective. This book is the inaugural publication of The Comparison Project, an innovative new approach to the philosophy of religion housed at Drake University (Des Moines, Iowa, USA). The Comparison Project organizes a biennial series of scholar lectures, practitioner dialogues, and comparative panels about core, cross-cultural topics in the philosophy of religion. Specialist scholars of religion first explore this topic in their religions of expertise; comparativist philosophers of religion then raise questions of meaning, truth, and value about this topic in comparative perspective. The Comparison Project stands apart from traditional approaches to the philosophy of religion in its commitment to religious inclusivity. It is the future of the philosophy of religion in a diverse, global world.