Continental Philosophy and the Problem with Religion
Issue: Vol 20 No. 2 (2017)
Journal: Implicit Religion
Subject Areas: Religious Studies
DOI: 10.1558/imre.34954
Abstract:
This review essay of the new volume Religion and European Philosophy: Key Thinkers from Kant to Žižek offers a critical analysis of the treatment of "religion" by Continental philosophers. The author points out how Continental philosophers repeatably try to surpass, use, or transform religion to define the proper ends of philosophy, but rarely stop to challenge some of their assumptions about the category. Moreover, the authors suggests that if philosophers and scholars want to correct this problem, they need to proceed with greater sensitivity to the genealogy and history of the concept of religion. What is needed in future work is to make the categorization of religion a central issue. It needs to be shown how philosophers often get caught in the construction and naturalization of a rather Christian or theological notion of religion, and how this is reflected in their historical and cross-cultural analysis of the topic.
Author: Tenzan Eaghll
References :
Barber, Daniel Colucciello. 2014. “Mediation, religion, and non-consistency
in-one.” Angelaki 19(2): 161–176. https://doi.org/10.1080/0969725X.
2014.950878
Bernasconi, Robert. 2009. “Must we avoid speaking of religion? The truth of religions.” Research in Phenomenology 39(2): 204–223. https://doi.org/10.1163/156916409X448175
Caputo, John D. and Gianni Vattimo 2007. After the Death of God. Edited by Jeffrey W. Robbins. New York: Columbia University Press.
Crockett, Clayton, B. Keith Putt and Jeffrey W. Robbins, eds. 2014. The Future of Continental Philosophy of Religion. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Deal, William E. and Timothy K. Beal. 2004. Theory for Religious Studies. New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780415966399
Derrida, Jacques 2002. “Faith and knowledge.” In Acts of Religion. Edited by Gidl Anidjar. New York: Routledge.
Eaghll, T. 2017. “Jean-Luc Nancy and the exit from religion.” Religion Compass 11. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/rec3.12228
Goodchild, Philip and Hillis Phelps, eds. 2017. Religion and European Philosophy: Key Thinkers from Kant to Žižek. New York: Routledge.
Heidegger., Martin. 2010. The Phenomenology of Religious Life. Translated by Matthias Fritsch and Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Janicaud, Dominique. 2000. French Phenomenology and the “Theological Turn.” New York: Fordham University Press.
Masuzawa, Tomoko. 2005. The Invention of World Religions: Or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226922621.001.0001
Nancy, Jean-Luc. 2012. “On dis-enclosure and its gesture, adoration: A concluding dialogue with Jean-Luc Nancy.” In Retreating Religion: Deconstructing Christianity with Jean-Luc Nancy, edited by A. Alexandrova, I. Devisch,
L. ten Kate and A. van Rooden, 304–343. Perspectives in Continental Philosophy. New York: Fordham University Press.
Nongbri, Brent. 2013. Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept. New Haven, CT: Yale. https://doi.org/10.12987/yale/9780300154160.001.0001
Parkinson, G.H.R. and Stuart Shanker, eds. 2003. Routledge History of Philosophy. 10 volumes. New York: Routledge.
Joy, Morny, ed. 2011. Continental Philosophy and the Philosophy of Religion. New York: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0059-8
Schilbrack, Kevin. 2014. Philosophy and the Study of Religions: A Manifesto. Hoboken: Wiley and Sons.
Smith, Anthony Paul and Daniel Whistler, ed. 2010. After the Postsecular and the Postmodern: New Essays in Continental Philosophy of Religion. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press.
Solomon, Robert C. and David Sherman, eds. 2003. The Blackwell Guide to Continental Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell.
Vedder, Ben. 2012. Heidegger’s Philosophy of Religion: From God to the Gods. Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press.