_Critical essays on Hegel's views concerning the relationship between religion and politics._.

Hegel's philosophy of religion is characterized by what seems to be a deep tension. On the one hand, Hegel claims to be a Christian thinker, viewing religion, and in particular Christianity, as a manifestation of the absolute. On the other hand, however, he seems to view modernity as largely secular, devoid of authoritative claims to transcendence. Modernity is secular in the political sense of requiring the state to be neutral when it comes to matters of religion. However, it is also (...) secular in the sense of there being no recourse to authoritative representations of a transcendent God. Drawing on Charles Taylor's view of secularization, the article focuses on the second strand of his religious thinking, exploring how Hegel can be thought of as a theorist of secularization. It is claimed that his dialectic of religious development describes a process of secularization. Ultimately, Hegel's system offers a view of the absolute as immanent, suggesting that an adequate account of religion will necessarily have to accept secularization as the end-point of spirit's development. This is how the tension between religion and secularization can be resolved. (shrink)

This article is a presentation of Plantinga’s ontological argument in its historical and systematical frames. Criticisms of the argument are presented as well. Philosophical claims underlying the defense of the argument are described as minimalist, but their connection with a strong logical system is noted.

Hegel is widely recognized as the preeminent philosopher of the history of philosophy. HisLectures on the History of Philosophyare designed in large measure to answer questions about philosophy's apparent futility by reformulating the presentation of the seemingly pointless succession of forms of philosophy so as to show its organic development (Hegel, 1994, 24). To reveal the proper shape of the history of philosophy, what is extraneous to it had to be omitted. Much that had previously been regarded as philosophy was (...) now to be treated under the heading of religion. The distinction between philosophy and religion, the decision as to what was philosophy and what was religion, took on an importance it had previously lacked. Although subsequent historians of philosophy did not always share Hegel's concern to show the organic development of the history of philosophy, his decisions about what was to be included and what excluded from philosophy proved particularly important in respect of the question of the place subsequently given to Indian philosophy. For this reason Hegel deservedly holds a central place in current discussions about the philosophical canon. (shrink)