211 - 220 of 236 results for: RELIGST

The difference that the word religious makes in religious ethics and how it affects issues of genre. Theoretical analyses with examples from W. and E. Asia. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

Critical examination of Kant¿s principle writings on religion against the background of his general theoretical and practical philosophy and guided by the hypothesis that his philosophy of religion continues to offer significant insights and resources to contemporary theories of religion. Recent reassessments of Kant on religion in the secondary literature will also be read and discussed

Examination of the early twentieth-century historian of religion, philosopher of culture, sociologist of religion, Christian theologian, and philosopher of history, Ernst Troeltsch, within the context of the late nineteenth-century "crisis of historicism," i.e., the historicization and relativization of religious, ethical, social, and political norms. Attention to seminal theorists of history (Herder, Kant, Ranke, Hegel, Nietzsche) in the post-Enlightenment German intellectual tradition and the attempts of Christian and Jewish thinkers in the Weimar era (Barth, Gogarten, Rosenzweig, L. Strauss) to "overcome" the crisis wrought by a radically historical approach to human culture.

(Graduate students register for 374. Undergrads register for 274 for 5 units.) The philosophy of religion emerged from the European Enlightenment as a new genre of reflection on religion distinct from both dogmatic theology and rationalist dreams of a "natural" religion of reason. Neither beholden to pre-critical tradition, nor dismissive of what Thomas Nagel has termed "the religious attitude," this new, ostensibly secular, genre of religious thought sought to rethink the meaning of Christianity at a time of immense philosophical ferment. The main currents of religious thought in Germany from Kant's critical philosophy to Kierkegaard's revolt against Hegelianism. Emphasis on the theories of religion, the epistemological status of religious discourse, the role of history (especially the figure of Jesus), and the problem of alienation/reconciliation in seminal modern thinkers: Kant, Schleiermacher, Hegel, and Kierkegaard.

(Graduate students register for 375.) Close reading of Kierkegaard's magnum opus, Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, in its early 19th-century context.

Lectures and seminar discussions of the problematic of the later Heidegger (1930 - 1976) in the light of his entire project. Readings from "On the Origin of the Work of Art" and Elucidations of Holderlin's Poetry.

Heidegger's work on meaning, the self, and the sacred. Texts include Being and Time, courses and opuscula up to 1933, the Letter on Humanism, and Contributions of Philosophy.

God is dead, but where does religion come from? The end of the quest for God in twentieth century philosophy. Robert Bellah's Religion in Human Evolution plus seminal works of Heidegger, including Being and Time, 'What Is Metaphysics?' 'Nietzsche's Saying `God is Dead.' 'N.B.: Class size limited. Apply early at tsheehan@stanford.edu.

This lecture-seminar first raises the question of essential characteristics of human being, such as temporality, mortality, hermeneutics and the relation to meaning, and then, via readings from Karl Rahner, asks whether human being is open to a possible relation to a supernatural divinity.