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Annual Philosophy of Religion Conference
Past Conferences & Publications
The Claremont Annual Philosophy of Religion Conference has a long history of providing a place for philosophical conversation about important themes in the philosophy of religion. Many of these conferences have resulted in publication and can be found below. To purchase the volume online or to find more information, click on the book image or conference title.
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2009: Passion and Passivity [conference program]
The interplay between activity and passivity in religious practices in general, and religious beliefs and emotions in particular, is a central and controversial issue in philosophical, theological and psychological thought. For many, religion is not merely logos and ethos but also, and importantly so, pathos; not merely (if at all) knowledge and morality but above all affect, emotion, passion and feeling. However, is the pathos-dimension of religion to be conceived as feeling, affect or emotion at all, or is it more like Schleiermacher’s ‘feeling of absolute dependence’, which is not an emotion but that which grounds all emotion, cognition, and action? Does religion have a single emotional center? Are there specific religious emotions or spiritual affects as Plato (divine madness), Luther and Calvin (fear, awe, love), R. Otto (mysterium tremendum et fascinans) or R. Rolland (‘oceanic’ feeling) have thought? Or are religious fear, religious love, and religious joy only the normal emotions of fear, love, and joy directed to a religious object, as William James has argued? But then how do religious emotions differ from ‘ordinary’ emotions?
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2008: The Presence and Absence of God [conference program]
For Jews, Christians, and Moslems alike God is not an inference, an absentee entity of which we can detect only faint traces in our world. On the contrary, God is present reality, indeed the most present of all realities, and his presence is unrestricted: If God is what believers believe God to be, then God is present. But what does this mean? In which sense, if any, can God be thought to be present?
Safeguarding the distinction between God and world has always been a basic interest of negative theology. But sometimes it has overemphasized divine transcendence in a way that made it difficult to account for the sense of God’s present activity and experienced actuality. Criticisms of the Western metaphysics of presence have made this even more difficult to conceive. On the other hand, there has been a widespread attempt in recent years to base all theology on (religious) experience; the Christian church celebrates God’s presence in its central sacraments of baptism and Eucharist; recent process thought has re-conceptualized God’s presence in panentheistic terms; and some have argued that God might be poly-present, not omnipresent.
But what does this mean? What does it mean to say that God is present or absent? How are we to understand the sense of divine presence in different religious traditions, the religious metaphors, rituals and institutions by which it is expressed, and the theological constructions that seek to make sense of this? This is what this conference is supposed to explore.
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2007: The Ethics of Belief [conference program]
This volume is presented as a tribute to D.Z. Phillips and the introduction by Eugene Long includes a brief discussion of Phillips' life and work. The first six articles were originally written at the invitation of Phillips for a conference on the ethics of belief held at Claremont Graduate University. Unfortunately Phillips died unexpectedly July 25, 2006 and was unable to participate in the conference. Two additional essays were invited by the editors to help add Phillips' voice to the discussion |
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2006: Religion and the End of Metaphysics? [conference program]
The authors of this volume present a detailed philosophico-theological discussion of the relation between religion and metaphysics. If thinkers like Richard Rorty and Kai Nielsen are right to insist that metaphysical speculation must be abandoned for good, then what are the prospects for religion? Is belief in an omnipotent God not inextricably linked with belief in a metaphysical ground of all being? Indeed, can one even speak intelligibly about causal or moral necessity without invoking the notion of a transcendent reality? On the other hand, is the concept of metaphysics not as multi-faceted as the modes of religious discourse themselves? The contributors approach these questions from their own distinctive (philosophical and theological) perspectives, in the process disentangling some of the complex conceptual issues surrounding religion and metaphysics. |
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2005: Whose God? Which Tradition? [conference program]
Philosophy of Religion is marked by controversy over which philosophical accounts do justice to core religious beliefs. Many Wittgenstinian philosophers are accused by analytic philosophers of religion of distorting these beliefs. In Whose God? Which Tradition?, the accusers stand accused of the same by leading philosophers in the Thomist and Reformed traditions. Their criticisms alert us to the dangers of uncritical acceptance of dominant philosophical traditions, and to the need to do justice to the conceptual uniqueness of the reality of God. The dissenting voices breathe new life into the central issues concerning the nature of belief in God. |
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2004: Religion and Wittgenstein’s Legacy
Wittgenstein was one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century. In this collection, distinguished Wittgenstein scholars examine his legacy for the philosophy of religion by examining key areas of his work: Wittgenstein's Tractatus; Frazer's 'Golden Bough'; and the implications of his later philosophy for the understanding of religion. Assessments are also provided of the philosophical and theological reception of his work. The collection provides an invaluable resource for graduate and undergraduate teaching of Wittgenstein in relation to religion. |
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2003: Biblical Concepts and Our World
In this collection, distinguished theologians and philosophers of religion explore the relation of key Biblical concepts to our world. They examine a range of concepts, including authority, faith and history, the historical Jesus, the resurrection and miracles. |
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2002: Language and Spirit
God is said to be Spirit, but the language of spirit is ignored in contemporary philosophy of religion. As well as exploring the notion of spirit in Hegel, Romanticism and Kierkegaard, participants explore the view that God is a spirit without a body, and the relations between "spirit" and "truth." |
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2000: Religion in the 21st Century
This book offers the rare opportunity to assess, within a single volume, the leading schools of thought in the contemporary philosophy of religion. With contributions by well-known exponents of each school, the book is an ideal text for assessing the deep proximities and divisions which characterize contemporary philosophy of religion. The schools of thought represented include philosophical theism, Reformed epistemology, Wittgensteinianism, Postmodernism, Critical Theory, and Process Thought. |
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1998: Kant and Kierkegaard on Religion
The contributions of leading Kantian and Kierkegaardian scholars to this collection break down to the simplistic contrast in which Kant is seen as the advocate of a rational moral theology and Kierkegaard as the advocate of an irrationalist faith. This collection is an ideal text for discussion of central issues. |
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1997: Religion and Hume’s Legacy
Whether one agrees with him or not, there is no avoiding the challenge of Hume for contemporary philosophy of religion. The symposia in this stimulating collection reveal why, whether the discussions concern Hume on metaphysics and religion, "true religion," religion and ethics, religion and superstition, or miracles. For some, Hume's criticisms of religion cannot withstand them, while others claim that Hume can be answered on his own terms. All responses to Hume determine the style and spirit in which one pursues philosophy of religion today. |
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1996: Religion Without Transcendence?
What can transcendence mean for us? We live in a world in which there are many conceptions of transcendence. Some philosophers say that they all point, in their way, to a transcendent realm, without which death and life's sorrows have the last word, while their opponents argue that since this realm is an illusion, we must use our own resources to meet life's trials. Others argue that moral and religious concepts of transcendence are obscured by philosophical notions of transcendence, and must be rescued from them. These conflicting views on a central issue in our culture are brought into sharp relief in the present collection. |
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1995: Can Religion Be Explained Away?
As the century draws to its close, how should we think of religion? Some see it as the survival in our midst of an outmoded, primitive way of thinking, while others accuse its critics of simply being blind to the meaning of religious belief. From a different perspective, the clash between belief and unbelief is not seen as a matter of identifying incoherent systems of thought, but as a clash between different demands made on us by divergent ways of looking at the world. Criticisms will flow between these perspectives. There is, however, another kind of interest in this situation: an interest in giving just characterizations of these different voices, so that the nature of allegiances and oppositions to religion may be better understood. |
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1994: Religion and Morality
Reflection on religion inevitably involves consideration of its relation to morality. When great evil is done to human beings, we may feel that something absolute has been violated. Can that sense, which is related to gratitude for existence, be expressed without religious concepts? Can we express central religious concerns, such as losing the self, while abandoning any religious metaphysic? Is moral obligation itself dependent on divine commands if it is to be objective, or is morality not only independent of religion, but its accuser if God is said to allow horrendous evils? In any case, what happens to the absolute claims of religion in what is, undeniably, a morally pluralistic world? These are the central questions discussed by philosophers of religion and moral philosophers in this collection. They do so in ways which bring new aspects to bear on these traditional issues. |
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1993: Philosophy and the Grammar of Religious Belief
The papers in this collection are concerned with the epistemology of religious belief. The contributors disagree on such issues as whether philosophers have a role to play in determining the reasonableness or intelligibility of religious beliefs, or whether philosophy is a descriptive task. |
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