This groundbreaking volume casts light on the long shadow of naturalistic monism in modern thought and culture. When monism's philosophical proposition - the unity of all matter and thought in a single, universal substance - fused with scientific empiricism and Darwinism in the mid-nineteenth century, it led to the formation of a powerful worldview articulated in the work of figures such as Ernst Haeckel. The compelling essays collected here, written by leading international scholars, investigate the articulation of monism in science, (...) philosophy, and religion and its impact on a range of social movements, from socialism and early feminism to imperialism and eugenics. The result is a broad and comprehensive chronological, disciplinary, and geographic map of a century of monism, as well as a bellwether for innovative new directions in the interdisciplinary study of science, religion, philosophy, and culture. (shrink)

pt. 1. lecture 1. Philosophy and religion as traditions ; lecture 2. Plato's inquiries ; lecture 3. Plato's spirituality ; lecture 4. Plato and Aristotle ; lecture 5. Plotinus ; lecture 6. The Jewish scriptures ; lecture 7. Platonist philosophy and scriptural religion ; lecture 8. The New Testament ; lecture 9. Rabbinic Judaism ; lecture 10. Church Fathers ; lecture 11. The development of Christian Platonism ; lecture 12. Jewish rationalism and mysticism (six cassettes) -- (...) pt. 2. lecture 13. Classical theism-proofs and attributes of God ; lecture 14. Medieval Christian theology-nature and grace ; lecture 15. Late-medieval nominalism and Christian mysticism ; lecture 16. Protestantism-problems of grace ; lecture 17. Descartes, Locke, and the crisis of modernity ; lecture 18. Leibniz and theodicy ; lecture 19. Hume's Critique of religion ; lecture 20. Kant-reason limited to experience ; lecture 21. Kant-morality as the basis of religion ; lecture 22. Schleiermacher-feeling as the basis of religion (five cassettes) -- pt. 3. lecture 23. Hegel-a philosophical history of religion ; lecture 24. Marx and the hermeneutics of suspicion ; lecture 25. Kierkegaard-existentialism and the leap of faith ; lecture 26. Nietzsche-critic of Christian morality ; lecture 27. Neo-orthodoxy-the subject and object of faith ; lecture 28. Encountering the biblical other-Buber and Levinas ; lecture 29. Process philosophy-God in time ; lecture 30. Logical empiricism and the meaning of religion ; lecture 31. Reformed epistemology and the rationality of belief ; lecture 32. Conclusion-philosophy and religion today (five cassettes). (shrink)

This masterful work on Kant's Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason explores Kant's treatment of the Idea of God, his views concerning evil, and the moral grounds for faith in God. Kant and Religion works to deepen our understanding of religion's place and meaning within the history of human culture, touching on Kant's philosophical stance regarding theoretical, moral, political, and religious matters. Wood's breadth of knowledge of Kant's corpus, philosophical sharpness, and depth of reflection sheds light (...) not only on Kant, but also on the fate of religion and its relation to philosophy in the modern world. (shrink)

An exploration of Chinese during a time of monumental change, The period after the fall of the Han dynasty.

They examine the currents of thought behind some of the most significant works in Western philosophy, including those by John Locke and David Hume.

Philosophers have gotten something of a bad reputation for widespread—and perhaps closed-minded—atheism. The reality, however, is quite otherwise. For most of their history, philosophy and religion have been intertwined in one way or another, and the vast majority of philosophers have had some kind of religious beliefs, oftentimes central to their philosophy, whether or not they have made the links explicit. This is not without good reason. Though their methods (sometimes) differ, philosophy and religion have (...) always shared a number of similar goals in terms of seeking answers to life’s “Big Questions,” questions about the ultimate nature of reality, our purpose or place in the world, the meaning of life and how we should live it. This chapter addresses philosophy's reputation of closed-mindedness towards the end, but first it addresses the historical point. (shrink)

Charles Taliaferro has written a dynamic narrative history of philosophical reflection on religion from the seventeenth century to the present, with an emphasis on shifting views of faith and the nature of evidence. The book begins with the movement called Cambridge Platonism, which formed a bridge between the ancient and medieval worlds and early modern philosophy. While the book provides a general overview of different movements in philosophy, it also offers a detailed exposition and reflection on key (...) arguments. The scope is broad, from Descartes to contemporary feminist philosophy of religion. Written with clarity and verve, this is a book that will appeal to professionals and students in the philosophy of religion, religious studies, and the history of ideas, as well as informed lay readers. (shrink)

Readers familiar with the luminous scholarly contributions of Harry Austryn Wolfson will welcome this rich collection of essays that have been previously published in widely dispersed journals and books, The articles range over Aristotle and Plato; Philo; the Church Fathers; and Arabic, Jewish, and Christian philosophers of the Middle Ages: Averroes and Avicenna, Maimonides, and Thomas Aquinas. The twenty-eight pieces are arranged in such a manner that ideas develop and are pursued from one article to the next, forming a coherent (...) whole. According to the editors, "This volume reflects the most basic biographical fact about Wolfson: his life has been one of unflagging commitment, uninterrupted creativity, and truly remarkable achievement...Wolfson's scholarship will be viewed with awe and admiration and his impact will be durable. He has added new dimensions to philosophical scholarship and illuminated wide areas of religious thought, plotting the terrain, blazing trails, and erecting guideposts for scores of younger scholars.". (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Philosophy and Religion in Plato's Dialogues by Andrea NightingaleMarina Berzins McCoyAndrea Nightingale. Philosophy and Religion in Plato's Dialogues. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Pp. 308. Hardback, $39.99.Andrea Nightingale has written a scholarly work that will prove indispensable to restoring the centrality of religion and theology to Platonic philosophy. She demonstrates that Plato uses the language of Greek religion to inform his (...) metaphysics and his very conception of philosophy. She deftly interweaves classical scholarship with close readings of a wide range of texts in order to build her claims. She gives especially good treatments of Eleusinian mysteries and Orphic ritual. She also explores the way in which the epiphanic nature of the encounter with the Forms has a transforming influence on the philosopher's soul.In the introduction, Nightingale presents an overview of key "divinity markers" (8–23) present in the dialogues—occurrences in which the Forms are described as godlike, references to Eleusinian and Orphic mysteries, poetic narratives of epiphanic encounters, and references to the sacred spectacle. She also assesses why these references are so often overlooked in contemporary scholarship, noting many contemporary scholars' unfamiliarity with the specific nature of Greek religion, and a general movement toward secularism in philosophy. She acknowledges some notable exceptions (e.g. Mark McPherran's work), but she might have given attention to others as well. Specifically, Jill Gordon's Plato's Erotic World: From Cosmic Origins to Human Death (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012) characterizes Platonic philosophy in terms of both striving for and alienation from the divine, and Ross Romero's Without the Least Tremor: The Sacrifice of Socrates in Plato's Phaedo (Albany: SUNY Press, 2009) on religious sacrifice in the Phaedo is another example. Still, Nightingale is accurate in her assessment of the field's tendency to ignore religious language or to assimilate it too quickly to later monotheistic traditions. Her book convincingly argues that religious language can serve a philosophical purpose in suggesting how union with Beauty and the Good is experienced. The book as a whole provides precious information about many connections between Greek religion and culture that add depth and richness to particular Platonic passages.Chapter 1 sketches out a theory of the Forms and argues that as a group they are treated as "divine." The Phaedo connects the Forms to concepts of eternality, unchangingness, and intelligibility (50). Human beings can connect with the Forms through contemplation (51). Similarly, the Republic describes the Forms as divine and the soul that contemplates them as undergoing a kind of divinization. The Form of the Good is the highest divinity, and its pursuit is an encounter with the divine. Nightingale notes that this does not mean that the Good can be grasped completely. But insofar as we can contemplate the Forms, Plato thinks that we can come to know the Good and become more like it.In chapter 2, Nightingale turns to the topic of human longing, focusing on the Symposium. We humans, Plato believes, have two different but related kinds of longing for immortality. While human beings long for a divine kind of immortality that is ultimately unreachable, they can have a partial kind of immortality through desiring the Good and giving birth to "children" of the soul. The vision of the Beautiful can be a kind of divine epiphany that leads to wonder. Nightingale delves more deeply into the concept of epiphany through texts such as the Homeric Hymn to Dionysius and Herodotus, as well as sanctuary inscriptions. Epiphanies validate the Greek religious system. Similarly, Plato's metaphysics is validated [End Page 149] by a philosophical vision of the Forms. Nightingale's detailed account of Eleusinian mysteries brings together a wide range of source material with which many philosophers will be unfamiliar, and which is especially valuable for scholars seeking to interpret Platonic passages that allude to the mysteries. Nightingale also offers an engaging interpretation of Alcibiades as one who has encountered the divine in Socrates yet failed to understand it, and so has "profaned" the mysteries in the context of human relationship (107–13).Chapter 3 examines Socrates's accounts of the soul and immortality in the Phaedo. Whereas those... (shrink)

If religion once seemed to have played out its role in the intellectual and political history of Western secular modernity, it has now returned with a vengeance. In this engaging study, Hent de Vries argues that a turn to religion discernible in recent philosophy anticipates and accompanies this development in the contemporary world. Though the book reaches back to Immanuel Kant, Martin Heidegger, and earlier, it takes its inspiration from the tradition of French phenomenology, notably Emmanuel Levinas, (...) Jean-Luc Marion, and, especially, Jacques Derrida. Tracing how Derrida probes the discourse on religion, its metaphysical presuppositions, and its transformations, de Vries shows how this author consistently foregrounds the unexpected alliances between a radical interrogation of the history of Western philosophy and the religious inheritance from which that philosophy has increasingly sought to set itself apart. De Vries goes beyond formal analogies between the textual practices of deconstruction and so-called negative theology to address the necessity for a philosophical thinking that situates itself at once close to and at the farthest remove from traditional manifestations of the religious and the theological. This paradox is captured in the phrase adieu ( à dieu ), borrowed from Levinas, which signals at once a turn toward and a leave-taking from God -- and which also gestures toward and departs from the other of this divine other, the possibility of radical evil. Only by confronting such uncanny and difficult figures, de Vries claims, can one begin to think and act upon the ethical and political imperatives of our day. (shrink)

Unconsciousness and quasiconsciousness in Plotinus -- The significance of practical ethics for Plotinus -- Action and contemplation in Plotinus -- Eternity and time -- Soul and time in Plotinus -- Reason and experience in Plotinus -- Plotinus on fate and free will -- Potentiality and the problem of plurality in the intelligible world -- Dunamis in Plotinus and Porphyry -- Plotinus and the myth of love -- The object of perception in Plotinus -- Plotinus on ideas between Plato and Aristotle (...) -- The Neoplatonic Socrates -- Porphyrian studies since 1913 -- Porphyry: scope for a reassessment -- A Porphyrian treatise against Aristotle? -- Did Porphyry reject the transmigration of human souls into animals -- Porphyry and pagan religious practice -- Religion, magic and theurgy in Porphyry -- Porphyry and the Platonic theology -- More Neoplatonic ethics -- Hypostasis and hyparxis in Porphyry -- Philosophical objections to Christianity on the eve of the Great Persecution -- Iamblichus' views on the relationship of philosophy to religion in De Mysteriis -- Further thoughts on Iamblichus as the first philosopher of religion. (shrink)

The debate over religion and, more especially, Christianity, seems today as far from being finished as ever. To be sure, Christianity has sharply declined in the West and its fundamental doctrine, belief in God, has become for many incredible or even scarcely intelligible. Yet there is also a sense in which the West cannot help being Christian, for Christianity has so deeply entered into our history and institutions that even when it is explicitly rejected, it still continues to shape (...) thought and action in ways of which we may not be aware. Furthermore, there is nothing ready to take the place of Christianity. This is the dilemma of the West at the present time. Christianity has come to seem more and more remote from the life and ethos of a secular technological society, yet according to some scholars it was Christianity itself which motivated the rise of science and technology, and as the Christian vision has faded, modern society feels itself strangely threatened with emptiness. Some look for a new secular faith that will bring purpose into a post-Christian world, as did John Dewey in his little book, A Common Faith, first published in 1934. But synthetic philosophical creeds never attain to the power that belongs to historical religions, sculpted through centuries of concrete history. The same remark would apply to Karl Jaspers’s “philosophical faith” as adumbrated in the book known in English as The Perennial Scope of Philosophy but originally published in 1948 with the German title, Der philosophische Glaube. In any case, one cannot read either Dewey or Jaspers without recognizing that there is a good deal of residual Christianity in their philosophies. (shrink)

The anti-religious tendency of contemporary philosophical thought is strengthened by the logical positivistic criterion of meaningfulness, according to which the language of religion is nonsensical and absurd. in common with the logical positivists, professor braithwaite holds that, of all the three conditions by which the truth of a statement can be determined, religious discourse does not fulfill any. it is asserted, accordingly, that religious language is either anthropomorphic or it means nothing. the article subjects the criterion of meaningfulness to (...) a searching analysis and exposes its hollowness. it is contended that all that the logical positivists can say, on the basis of the criterion, is that the language of religion is neither tautologous nor descriptive, but the further conclusion that it is meaningless is, to use legal terminology, excessive. it is also argued that the dilemma posed above can be "escaped." the meaningfulness of the religious language can be discovered in the context of analogy, obedience, and encounter. (shrink)

The papers in this volume fall into four sections. The first part deals more generally with heresy, religious movements and the Church, while the second focuses on Wyclif, covering his path to dissent, his religious doctrines, and a doctrinal comparison with Hus. Philosophical themes come to the fore in the third section, which has papers on the decline of scholasticism in the 14th century and on the trivium, and also includes hitherto unpublished essays on the theology of Augustine's two cities (...) and on Ockham and nominalism. The final part, with another two papers published here for the first time, discusses Christian, Augustinian and Franciscan concepts of man, and the concepts of natural rights according to Ockham and the Franciscans. (shrink)

Pandey, V. Introduction.--Kalelkar, K. S. Jainism, a familyhood of all religions.--David, M. D. From Risabha to Mahavira.--Chalil, J. E. Glimpses of Southern Jainism.--Gopani, A. S. Life and culture in Jaina narrative literature, 8th, 9th and 10th century A.D.--Gopani, A. S. Position of women in Jaina literature.--Ranka, R. Evolution of Jaina thought.--Pandey, V. Jaina philosophy and religion.--Shah, C. C. Jainism and modern life.--Sankalia, H. D. The great renunciation.--Shah, U. P. Jaina contribution to Indian art.--Gorakshkar, S. Early metal images of (...) the Jainas.--Bhagwati, U. Bibliographical aids for the study of Jainism. (shrink)

Max Charlesworth’s Philosophy and Religion: From Plato to Postmodernism is an erudite and scholarly work, grounded in an impressive command of the history of philosophy of religion. However, despite its many virtues, the work has some serious shortcomings, due more to what it overlooks than to what it includes. In this paper, I review Charlesworth’s taxonomy of approaches to philosophy of religion, and argue for an alternative taxonomy that does more justice to the diversity (...) of religions and the evidence produced by social scientific studies of religion. In particular, I suggest that Charlesworth pays insufficient attention to the project of articulating, comparing and assessing competing religious and non-religious worldviews. (shrink)

First published in 1980, and now substantially revised and enlarged, this panoramic survey of philosophic and religious thought, both ancient and modern, provides access to a wide array of ideas. More than just a dictionary, this well-designed reference work contains analytical commentary and historical accounts on a vast range of topics, select bibliographies attached to many of the entries, and considerable cross-referencing. The cross-references run from philosophic movements, to technical terms, to the positions of individual philosophers, thus encouraging a personal (...) exploration of the themes, movements, and thinkers of any particular school of thought. The end result is a reasonably compact single volume with many of the features of a multivolume encyclopedia. Reese covers both analytic and Continental philosophy, and includes a good deal of the history of philosophy. There are biographical entries for more than 900 ancient, medieval, and modern philosophers, for a total number of entries of over 4000. This new edition expands on the original treatment of religion and Asian philosophy and includes enlarged perspectives on Continental philosophy. Named "Outstanding Reference Work" by the American Library Association, the first edition was a Book-of-the-Month science pick and a selection of the Quality Paperback Book Club. Authoritative, comprehensive, clear, and interesting, The Dictionary of Philosophy and Religion will benefit the nonspecialist and specialist alike. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to expose a basic flaw at the root of perennialism as a method for studying mysticism—its distinction between ‘exoteric’ and ‘esoteric’ components of mysticism and religion. Rather than being distinct, the specific ‘exoteric’ doctrines of a given mystic’s tradition penetrate the mystics’ knowledge-claims. Thus, the ‘esoteric’ dimension in a mystical tradition is permeated by that mystical tradition’s ‘exoteric’ doctrines, not by the transcultural and ahistorical perennial spine that perennialists postulate. Contrary to what the (...) perennialists suggest, there is no one underlying esoteric set of beliefs embedded in all traditional religions that all mystics share. Rather, in the different religious traditions of the world, there are genuinely different mysticisms with different beliefs, practices, values, and goals. Thus, the perennialist approach distorts the history of mysticism. It is better seen as a theology of religions than as an alleged discernment of timeless truths presented throughout the history of mysticism. (shrink)

The _Maimonides Review of Philosophy and Religion_ is an annual collection of double-blind peer-reviewed articles, which seeks to provide a broad international arena for an intellectual exchange of ideas between the disciplines of philosophy, theology, religion, cultural history, and literature and to showcase their multifarious junctures within the framework of Jewish studies.

The Maimonides Review of Philosophy and Religion is an annual collection of double-blind peer-reviewed articles that seeks to provide a broad international arena for an intellectual exchange of ideas between the disciplines of philosophy, theology, religion, cultural history, and literature and to showcase their multifarious junctures within the framework of Jewish studies. Contributions to the Review place special thematic emphasis on scepticism within Jewish thought and its links to other religious traditions and secular worldviews. The Review (...) is interested in the tension at the heart of matters of reason and faith, rationalism and mysticism, theory and practice, narrativity and normativity, doubt and dogma. (shrink)

First published in 1980, and now substantially revised and enlarged, this panoramic survey of philosophic and religious thought, both ancient and modern, provides access to a wide array of ideas. More than just a dictionary, this well-designed reference work contains analytical commentary and historical accounts on a vast range of topics, select bibliographies attached to many of the entries, and considerable cross-referencing. The cross-references run from philosophic movements, to technical terms, to the positions of individual philosophers, thus encouraging a personal (...) exploration of the themes, movements, and thinkers of any particular school of thought. The end result is a reasonably compact single volume with many of the features of a multivolume encyclopedia. Reese covers both analytic and Continental philosophy, and includes a good deal of the history of philosophy. There are biographical entries for more than 900 ancient, medieval, and modern philosophers, for a total number of entries of over 4000. This new edition expands on the original treatment of religion and Asian philosophy and includes enlarged perspectives on Continental philosophy. Named "Outstanding Reference Work" by the American Library Association, the first edition was a Book-of-the-Month science pick and a selection of the Quality Paperback Book Club. Authoritative, comprehensive, clear, and interesting, The Dictionary of Philosophy and Religion will benefit the nonspecialist and specialist alike. (shrink)

Scheler's philosophic reflections on religious experience and on the connections between this experience and those reflections seek to found a phenomenological personalism. Hence I first delineate his conception of person via his view of phenomenology as resulting from a critique of husserl. I then elaborate scheler's conception of philosophy in terms of the intentional acts involved. After a similar elaboration of scheler's view of religion, I present his 'system of conformity' of the proper interplay of philosophy and (...) religion. I conclude by indicating why his phenomenological anthropology is not only inadequate to the foundational task assigned to it but methodologically incoherent. (shrink)

'The History of Western Philosophy of Religion' brings together an international team of over 100 leading scholars to provide authoritative exposition of how history's most important philosophical thinkers - from antiquity to the present day - have sought to analyse the concepts and tenets central to Western religious belief, especially Christianity. Divided chronologically into five volumes, 'The History of Western Philosophy of Religion' is designed to be accessible to a wide range of readers, from the scholar (...) looking for original insight and the latest research findings to the student wishing for a masterly encapsulation of a particular philosopher's views. Together these volumes provide an indispensable resource for anyone conducting research or teaching in the philosophy of religion and related fields, such as theology, religious studies, the history of philosophy, and the history of ideas. (shrink)