Post-Secular Philosophy: Between Philosophy and Theology [Hardcover]

Philip Blond (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 8, 1998 | ISBN-10: 0415097770 | ISBN-13: 978-0415097772 | Edition: 1

From Nietzsche to the present, the Western philosophical tradition has been dominated by a secular thinking that has dismissed discussion of God as largely irrelevant. In recent years however, the issue of theology has returned to spark some of the most controversial debates within contemporary philosophy. Discussions of theology by key contemporary philosophers such as Derrida and Levinas have placed religion at centre stage.
Post-Secular Philosophy is one of the first volumes to consider how God has been approached by modern philosophers and consider the links between theology and postmodern thought. Fifteen accessible essays present a clear and compelling picture of how key thinkers including Descartes, Nietzsche, Freud, Wittgenstein, Heidegger and Derrida have made God a central part of their thinking. Each philosopher and how they have approached and criticised theology is placed in a clear historical context.
Placing the collection in context with Phillip Blond's outstanding introduction, Post-Secular Philosophy presents a fascinating discussion of the alternatives to the relativism and nihilism that dominate Western thinking.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Post-Secular Philosophy crystallizes the emergence of Cambridge Radical Orthodoxy and provides a polemical thrust for its adherents ... the standpoint of the editor and many of the contributors represents an influential position which must be taken into account.' - Religion

'An audacious manifesto.' - Modern Review

'In Post-Secular Philosophy Phillip Blond has convened an impressive array of contemporary theologians and philosophers ... it is a submission of philosophy to theology and the denial of the secular lie, in an attempt to address some of the most pressing theological and philosophical questions of our times, that make this collection so important and take us into the post-secular. This book is to be warmly commended to all who seek to engage with a confident, challenging and radically orthodox philosophical theology.' - Affirming Catholicism

'Don't miss out on the excellent fare on offer here.' - Reviews in Religion and Theology'

'Post-secular Philosphy represents a challenge for theological thinking as well as an important phenomenon for the academic study of religion'

'Post-Secular Philosophy crystallises the emergence of Cambridge Radical Orthodoxy and provides a polemical thrust for its adherents'

Each contributor to the volume treats an important figure of modern or contemporary Continental philosophy, with every major thinker from Descartes to Irigaray represented'

'Post-Secular Philosophy is an important collection dealing with powerful issues and thinkers, and the standpoint of the editor and many of the contributors represents an influential postion which must ne taken into account as a religious expression in our postmodern world'

'Despite the frequently heralded demise of mainstream Christianity, and particularly of Anglicanism, theology in England has never been so challenging this century as it is now. Post-Secular Philosophy contends that the post-modernist unmasking of the modern man of rationalist humanism need not yield to the playful nihilism that comes from Nietzsche, Heidegger and Derrida; rather it is time to tell the old, old story, in all its premodernity, about our being the gift of a transcendent source which grants all reality as truth, goodness and beauty ... By any standards this is a brillint collection.' - New Blackfriars

'In his introduction Blond begins to delineate a possible theological realism, drawing in particular on the late work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Here, more than anywhere else, the centrality to radical orthodoxy of a reconception of the bodily and the material becomes appealingly evident ... Blond's phenomenological path offers the nearest thing to an independent philosophical grounding currently available to radical orthodoxy ... Whatever the next step (in radical orthodoxy) turns out to be, it should be awaited with real interest, and not only by theologians.' - Simon Jarvis, Textual Practice

'My advice to others: don't miss out on the excellent fare on offer here,.' - Steve Else, University of Birmingham

About the Author

Phillip Blond is Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge University

Product Details

• Hardcover: 392 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (January 8, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415097770
• ISBN-13: 978-0415097772
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,108,950 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an outstanding renewal of Christian theology, March 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Post-Secular Philosophy: Between Philosophy and Theology (Paperback)

One of the most important and interesting accounts of the relationship between philosophy and theology that I have ever read. The book is a collection of edited papers that attempts to cover the way in which modern philosophy has refused to consider God except on its own secular terms. The long introduction by Phillip Blond is especially compelling. The introduction argues that the secular philosophical settlement is highly questionable.It outlines an alternative Christian ontology which Blond contends transcends the secular opposition of post-modernism and modernism, he argues that the world itself demands an entirely different account of its own nature. Avoiding a subjective religiousity Blond argues that Christianity is written into the character of the world and our perception of it!!

5 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The cutting edge of doing philosophy, April 19, 2001

By 

MARGARET, PETER "LECTIODIVINABOOKS" (RIPON, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Post-Secular Philosophy: Between Philosophy and Theology (Paperback)

The conversation between philosophy and theology has at long last been rejoined after centuries of animosity and slander. This tentative rejoining has grown out of necessity; for, as Blond's excellent introduction makes plain, secularist philosophy has bequeathed to us a world of bloody discontinuities which threatens to choke us. This volume is an exciting first salvo across the bow of a bankrupt secularism whose contemporary devotees are stewing in their own juices, and whose stammerings are nothing more than desperate cries for help. The book also opens up exciting and lively new areas of philosophical reflection.

3 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The cutting edge of doing philosophy, April 19, 2001

By 

MARGARET, PETER "LECTIODIVINABOOKS" (RIPON, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Post-Secular Philosophy: Between Philosophy and Theology (Paperback)

The conversation between philosophy and theology has at long last been rejoined after centuries of animosity and slander with theology being mostly on the receiving end. This tentative rejoining has grown out of necessity; for, as Blond's excellent introduction makes plain, secularist philosophy has bequeathed to us a world of bloody discontinuities which threatens to choke us. This volume is an exciting first salvo across the bow of a bankrupt secularism whose contemporary devotees are stewing in their own juices, and whose stammerings are nothing more than desperate cries for help. The book also opens up exciting and lively new areas of philosophical reflection, and it certainly is a welcome beginning at overcoming modern philosophical parochialism.