9780130982391

Providing a full exposition of the classical philosophical and sociological theories of religion, this book covers the major thinkers from the time of the 18th century Enlightenment through the 20th century.It discusses virtually all classical works, providing chapters on each participant in either historical or chronological order, so that readers understand how insight developed through time.For those involved in religious study and the philosophical and sociological implications of religious writings.

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PREFACE

viii

CHAPTER 1 ROUSSEAU

1

(11)

The Creed of a Savoyard Priest

2

(7)

Rousseau on Civil Religion

9

(3)

CHAPTER 2 HEGEL

12

(11)

Romanticism and Nationalism

13

(3)

Hegel's Early Essays on Religion

16

(3)

Hegel's Later Philosophy of Religion

19

(4)

CHAPTER 3 THE YOUNG OR LEFT HEGELIANS

23

(22)

Feuerbach on the Essence of Religion

26

(5)

Marx's Critique

31

(1)

Max Stirner

32

(6)

The Rebuttal of Stirner by Marx and Engels

38

(2)

Bruno Bauer on the So-Called Jewish Question

40

(5)

CHAPTER 4 MARX

45

(8)

The Young Marx on Religion

50

(3)

CHAPTER 5 NIETZSCHE

53

(23)

Thus Spoke Zarathustra

58

(3)

Beyond Good and Evil

61

(5)

On the Genealogy of Morals

66

(4)

Guilt, Bad Conscience, and Ascetic Ideals

70

(1)

The Anti-Christ

71

(5)

CHAPTER 6 MAX WEBER

76

(26)

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

78

(1)

The Spirit of Capitalism

79

(3)

Traditionalism

82

(3)

Luther's Conception of the Calling

85

(2)

The Religious Foundations of Worldly Asceticism

87

(1)

Calvinism

87

(3)

Pietism

90

(1)

Methodism

90

(1)

The Baptist Sects

91

(1)

Asceticism and the Spirit of Capitalism

92

(4)

Weber's Travels in America and Their Confirmation of His Thesis

96

(2)

Criticisms of the Weber Thesis

98

(4)

CHAPTER 7 MAX WEBER ON THE WORLD RELIGIONS

102

(33)

The Religion of India

111

(3)

Orthodox Hinduism

114

(2)

Jainism

116

(2)

Ancient Buddhism

118

(3)

Ancient Judaism

121

(3)

The Hebrew Prophets: The Setting

124

(4)

The Prophetic Ethic

128

(3)

The "Pariah" Community

131

(4)

CHAPTER 8 E.B. TYLOR

135

(15)

Retribution Theory?

142

(1)

Development or Degeneration?

143

(1)

The Soul as the Source of Animism

143

(2)

Fetishism and Idolatry

145

(2)

Totemism

147

(1)

Polytheism

148

(2)

CHAPTER 9 JAMES GEORGE FRAZER

150

(18)

The King of the wood

154

(3)

From Magic to Religion

157

(2)

The Worship of Trees

159

(5)

Solving the Mystery

164

(4)

CHAPTER 10 BRONISLAW MALINOWSKI

168

(12)

Death and the Functions of Religion

172

(2)

Malinowski's Theory of Magical Language

174

(6)

CHAPTER 11 SIGMUND FREUD

180

(12)

Religion as Illusion

184

(3)

Freud's Repudiation of Religious Beliefs

187

(5)

CHAPTER 12 EMILE DURKHEIM

192

(13)

Totemism: An Elementary Religion

194

(4)

Ascetic Rites

198

(2)

Criticisms of Durkheim's Theory

200

(5)

EPILOGUE

205

(5)

INDEX

210

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It was in the course of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment that social thinkers began to study religion from a rational, scientific, and critical standpoint. The thinkers of the Enlightenment held firmly to the conviction that the mind could comprehend the forces of nature and that humans could control those forces and employ them for their needs. Reason became the deity of these philosophers, who were enormously inspired by the scientific achievements of the preceding centuries, notably by the discoveries of Newton based on logic and empirical evidence.Science in the hands of Galileo, Kepler, and Newton had revealed the workings of the natural laws in the physical world. This suggested to social philosophers that perhaps similar laws might be discoverable in the social and cultural world. The French thinkers, calledphilosophes,therefore proceeded to analyze all social, political, and religious institutions, subjecting them to merciless criticism from the standpoint of reason. For the philosophes, institutions were reasonable only so long as they harmonized with human nature, only so long as they promoted the perfectibility of the individual. Unreasonable institutions prevented human beings from realizing their potential. The philosophes therefore waged an intellectual war against the irrational, employing criticism as their primary weapon. They fought against superstition, bigotry, and intolerance; they condemned censorship and demanded freedom of thought; they attacked the privileges of the monarchy and the feudal classes and their restraints upon the commercial and manufacturing classes; and they endeavored to secularize ethics and morality. In a word, their faith in reason and science led them to be humanitarian, optimistic, and confident.To appreciate what was distinctively novel about the Enlightenment as an intellectual movement, we need to see how it contrasted with the medieval outlook. The medieval aim in seeking knowledge was to discover God's intentions for his creation. Even the most rational of the medieval thinkers conceded that there were sacred areas into which they must not venture, spheres in which revelation, faith, and ecclesiastical authority offered the answers and gave the orders. Scientific curiosity as applied to those spheres was an unwelcome intrusion into holy ground. It was this inviolable domain of thesacredthat distinguished the Middle Ages at their most scientific and skeptical moments from the later ages of criticism. The medieval mind was dominated by the church, literally, intellectually, and emotionally. In contrast to the medieval era, the thinkers of the Enlightenment regarded all aspects of human life and works as subject to critical examination.In their attitude toward religion as toward other institutions, there was diversity among these thinkers. One must not think of the Enlightenment as a monolith. Some of these thinkers were, ostensibly, agnostic. Montesquieu, for example, argued that if there is a God, he must necessarily be just. For Montesquieu, a "law," whether in nature or in society, referred to "the necessary relations deriving from the nature of things." It followed, for Montesquieu, that "justice is a true relation between two things: the relation is always the same, no matter who examines it, whether it be God, or an angel, or lastly man himself."1 Aiming thus to secularize ethics and morality, Montesquieu continues: "Thus if there were no God, we would still be obliged to venerate justice, that is, we should do everything possible to resemble that being of whom we have such an exalted notion and who, if he exists, would necessarily be just. Free though we might be from the yoke of religion, we should never be free from the bonds of equity" (106).Others among the Enlightenment thinkers were thoroughgoing materialists and atheists. Baron d'Holbach, for instance, contended that the unavoidable verdict of common sense upon relig

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The Religious Experience Classical Philosophical and Social Theories

The Religious Experience Classical Philosophical and Social Theories

0130982393

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