Philosophy of Religion after »Religion«

Long framed in terms of Christian and secularist concerns, the field of philosophy of religion has recently been attempting to expand to include a wider, more diverse variety of religious phenomena. At the same time, a growing body of literature within religious studies has called attention to the historical genealogy and limitations of the category of »religion.« If »religion« is itself a modern, secular extrapolation from Christian understandings, disseminated globally through colonial encounter, does the apparently more capacious approach to philosophy of religion simply reproduce the deficiencies of the old under the guise of a false universal? The present volumeseeks to move the field in the direction of a reflexive turn, toward an examination of the philosophical implications of the concept of »religion."Richard Amesbury: Introduction: Making the Reflexive Turn in Philosophy of Religion – Sonia Sikka: »Religion« under Erasure: Why the Concept is Problematic and Why We Still Need It – Timothy D. Knepper: Why Philosophers of Religion Don't Need »Religion« – at least not for now – Dwayne Tunstall: An Essentialist in Critical Religion Land, Or, How Fitzgerald's Deconstructive Genealogy of Religion Is Compatible with an Essentialist Concept of Religion – J. Aaron Simmons: Vagueness and Its Virtues: A Proposal for Renewing Philosophy of Religion – Vincent Lloyd: Race and the Philosophy of Religion – Jin Y. Park: Nothingness and Self Transformation: Kim Iryŏp, Tanabe Hajime, and Jacques Derrida on Religious Practice – Robert Cummings Neville: Whether Religion Is a Proper Subject of Study