Abstract
This paper discusses central methodological issues in philosophy of religion. It concentrates on D. Z. Phillips, who has been the best-known exponent of the Wittgensteininan approach over several decades. Phillips contrasts his “contemplative” conception of philosophy with the apologetic and normative traditions in philosophy. Its task is not to provide a rational foundation to our ways of living and thinking. Instead, the task of philosophy is to do conceptual justice to the variety of the world. Phillips contrasts his view with two main traditions in the modern philosophy of religion. The first is “the hermeneutics of suspicion,” (Nietzsche Marx, Freud), which sees religion as an illusion. The second is “the hermeneutics of recollection” (Ricouer), which is sympathetic to religion and which holds that there is something real in religion; it tries “to recollect, in the sense of retrieve this “‘something’ for our age” (Phillips 2001, 1). In contrast to these approaches, Phillips insists that it is not the task of a philosopher to determine the reality of religious beliefs nor to reform them. Instead, philosophy of religion is concerned with the sense of religious beliefs and practices. “The hermeneutics of contemplation” merely aims to clarify what religious beliefs amount to, but it does not arrive at a specific religious (or atheistic) point of view. Phillips holds that philosophy is a disinterested enquiry, which is neutral with respect to our personal religious views of life. This paper will bring up the question whether Phillips’ contemplative position leads to Protagoras’s relativism.
Presenters
Timo KoistinenUniversity Lecturer in Philosophy of Religion , Faculty of Theology, Department of Systematic Theology, University of Helsinki, Finland
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Method of Philosophy, Contemplative Philosophy of Religion, D. Z. Phillips
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