Undergraduate Course: The God(s) of the Philosophers: Proposals and Problems (DIVI08026)
Course Outline
| School | School of Divinity |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 8 (Year 1 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course introduces students to philosophy of religion, covering key proposals and key problems in philosophical God-talk. Who or what is God? What do we mean when we say that we don't believe in God or that we do believe in God? And why is God important? The course concentrates on both central defenders and critical despisers of God-talk in the history of philosophy in Europe, but points to the influences and the impact of religious and nonreligious traditions from around the world. Through a selection of texts from philosophy of religion, past and present the course aims at enabling students to engage with philosophical God-talk from various social, cultural, and political contexts. Thus the course seeks to encourage critical and self-critical reflection on some of the most challenging questions regarding religious and nonreligious commitments today. |
| Course description |
Academic Description:
This course introduces students to philosophy of religion, covering key proposals and key problems in philosophical God-talk. The course concentrates on both central defenders and critical despisers of God-talk in the history of philosophy in Europe, but points to the influences and the impact of religious and nonreligious traditions from around the world. Throughout the course, students explore a spectrum of different philosophical styles and diverse philosophical schools ranging from metaphysical to post-metaphysical modes of thought. Through a selection of texts from both the past and the present of philosophy of religion the course aims at enabling students to engage with philosophical God-talk from various social, cultural, and political contexts. Thus, the course seeks to encourage students' critical and self-critical reflection on the significance of religious and nonreligious commitments today.
Syllabus/Outline Content:
Throughout the semester, thinkers from a variety of schools and styles that have shaped the thinking and talking about God in the history of philosophy from the past to the present are presented in chronological order. The course introduces one thinker each week. Students explore the context, examine the concepts, and engage with the consequences of the thinker's approach to God within the framework of her or his philosophy. The course concentrates on primary rather than secondary texts in order to enable students to identify and interpret the arguments of classic and contemporary philosophical texts carefully and critically.
Student Learning Experience:
The course is taught through three one-hour lectures plus one one-hour tutorial each week. The lectures introduce students to the context, the concepts, and the consequences of the philosophy of the thinker whose text is discussed in the tutorial. Students prepare the tutorial texts in their study time prior to the tutorial. The tutorials are dedicated to the discussion of the texts that are set for each week. The course also covers study skills, particularly essay writing. In addition to their participation in class, students are assessed by two essays, one reviewing a publication related to philosophy of religion and one reflecting on a problem related to philosophy of religion.
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Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Identify and interpret philosophical arguments in primary and secondary texts.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the arguments of the set texts from philosophy of religion.
- Engage in academic discussions with their peers.
- Explain and express philosophical arguments clearly and concisely.
- Demonstrate an ability to pursue and present research in a properly referenced essay.
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Reading List
Indicative Bibliography:
Peter Adamson, A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, 3 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014 - 2016).
Pamela S. Anderson, A Feminist Philosophy of Religion: The Rationality and Myths of Religious Belief (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998).
Pamela S. Anderson and Beverly Clack (eds), Feminist Philosophy of Religion: Critical Readings (London: Routledge, 2004).
Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogion (London: Penguin, 1995).
Aristotle, The Metaphysics (London: Penguin, 1998).
Augustine, Confessions (London: Penguin, 1996).
Talal Asad, Judith Butler, Saba Mahmood, and Wendy Brown, Is Critique Secular? Blasphemy, Injury and Free Speech (Berkley: University of California Press, 2009).
John D. Caputo, The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida: Religion Without Religion (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1997).
John D. Caputo, On Religion (London: Routledge, 2001).
John W. Cooper, Panentheism: The Other God of the Philosophers: From Plato to the Present (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006).
John Cornwell and Michael McGhee (eds), Philosophers and God: At the Frontiers of Faith and Reason (London: Continuum, 2009).
Oliver Crisp (ed), A Reader in Contemporary Philosophical Theology (London: T&T Clark, 2009).
Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women's Liberation (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1973).
René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).
Jacques Derrida, Acts of Religion, ed. Gil Anidjar (London: Routledge, 2002).
David Fergusson (ed), Scottish Philosophical Theology (Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2007).
Thomas P. Flint and Michael Rae (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
Anthony Gottlieb, The Dream of Reason: A History of Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance (London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000).
Anthony Gottlieb, The Dream of Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Philosophy (London: Penguin, 2016).
Jürgen Habermas, Religion and Rationality: Essays on Reason, God, and Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002).
Jürgen Habermas, Between Naturalism and Religion (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008).
Margaret Daphne Hampson, After Christianity (London: SCM Press, 1996).
Georg W.F. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, ed. Peter C. Hodgson (Berkley: University of California Press, 1988).
Georg W.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, ed. Terry Pinkard (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018).
David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, ed. Richard H. Popkin (Cambridge: Hackett, 1998).
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Eric Steinberg (Cambridge: Hackett, 1993).
William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
Grace M. Jantzen, Becoming divine: Towards a Feminist Philosophy of Religion (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998).
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Philosophical Theology (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978).
Richard Kearney, The God Who May Be: A Hermeneutics of Religion (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2001)
Richard Kearney, Strangers, Gods and Monsters: Interpreting Otherness (London: Routledge, 2003).
Richard Kearney, Anatheism: Returning to God after God (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2009).
Anthony Kenny, A New History of Western Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon, 2004).
Anthony Kenny, The God of the Philosophers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979).
John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration, ed. Kerry Walters (London: Broadview, 2013).
Chad Meister and Paul Copan (eds), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Religion (London: Routledge, 2013).
Eduardo Mendieta (ed), The Frankfurt School on Religion: Key Writings by the Major Thinkers (London: Routledge, 2005).
Plato, The Republic (London: Penguin, 2007).
Michael C. Rae (ed), Oxford Readings in Philosophical Theology, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
James Schmidt (ed), What Is Enlightenment? Eighteenth-Century Answers and Twentieth-Century Questions (Berkley: University of California Press, 1996).
Benedict de Spinoza, Ethics (London: Penguin, 1996).
Eleonore Stump, The God of the Bible and the God of the Philosophers (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2016).
Richard Swinburne, The Coherence of Theism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).
Richard Swinburne, Is There A God? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).
Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
Charles Taliaferro, Paul Draper, and Philip L. Quinn (eds), A Companion to Philosophy of Religion (Chichester: Blackwell, 2010).
Charles Taliaferro and Chad Meister (eds), Christian Philosophical Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964-80).
Hent de Vries, Philosophy and the Turn to Religion (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1999).
Graham Ward (ed), The Postmodern God: A Theological Reader (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997).
Keith Ward, God and the Philosophers (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2009).
Keith Ward, God: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: Oneworld, 2002).
Keith Ward, The Christian Idea of God: A Philosophical Foundation for Faith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).
Nicholas Wolterstorff, Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections on the Claim that God Speaks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
- Ability to summarise difficult and diverse material
- Ability to structure arguments systematically
- Ability to interpret set texts
- Ability to judge the relative importance of items on course bibliographies
- Ability to produce a properly referenced essay |
| Keywords | God,Philosophy,Theology,Philosophy of Religion,Philosophical Theology |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Ulrich Schmiedel
Tel: (0131 6)50 8918
Email: |
Course secretary | |
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