| CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN RELIGION AND CRITICAL THOUGHT |
| Edited by Wayne Proudfoot (Columbia University), Jeffrey L. Stout (Princeton University), and Nicholas Wolterstorff (Yale University) |
| Since the Enlightenment, there has been debate, at times heated, over the implications of critical thought for our understanding of religious ideas and institutions. Disciplinary boundaries have always mattered less to the debate than certain acknowledged exemplars of critical thinking. Locke, Hume, Kant, Marx, Feuerbach, Nietzsche, Freud, and Durkheim long ago became canonical figures, but the list of model critics has never been stable, and continues to proliferate. Struggles against sexism, racism, and imperialism have all produced prominent critics of their own. Now, complicating matters further, the idea of critical thought is itself under attack. At the same time, many scholars are returning to religious traditions in search of resources for their critique of contemporary society and culture. Cambridge Studies in Religion and Critical Thought is a series of books intended to address the various interactions of critical thinking and religious tradition in this rapidly changing context. The series will take up the following questions, either by reflecting on them philosophically or by pursuing their ramifications in studies of specific figures and movements: Is a coherent critical perspective on religion desirable or even possible? If so, what would it look like, and how might it answer charges of reductionism, relativism, and nihilism? Should it aspire to take the form of a systematic theory? What sort of relationship to religious tradition ought a critic to have? One of detachment? Of active opposition? Of empathy? Of identification? What, if anything, is worth saving from the Enlightenment legacy or from critics of religion like Hume and Feuerbach? Where else should we look for guidance in critically appraising religious traditions? To premodern philosophers? To postmodern texts? To the religious traditions themselves? When we turn to specific religious traditions, what resources for criticizing modern society and culture do we find? The answers offered will be varied, but will uniformly constitute distinguished, philosophically informed, critical analyses of particular religious topics. |
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