180031 SE What is religion? (2016S)

The positive examination of religion has brought philosophy to the limits of rationality and beyond. In his work "Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason", Kant tries to emphasise the rational traits of religion as the hypothetical purpose of morality. He aims towards a kind of reason based belief that relies on rational and ethical principles and not on superstitious submission. However, even in Kant the fathomless nature of the religious persists: for example in the form of phenomena like the "radical evil" or in the irrevocable tensions between moral-based rational and biblical belief. In contrast, Kierkegaard deems it impossible to build a bridge between the rational and the religious: The leap into faith leaves us with an unintelligible chasm, which renders any positive or rational reference to God impossible and in existential terms, throws us back more so than ever before to ourselves.

The seminar will also address the critical examination of religious belief, therefore we will discuss the works of two very different thinkers. Friedrich Nietzsche's "Antichrist" is an anti-Christian polemic that tackles the question of the genealogical sources of so-called Christian values and of the hidden und disguised continuities of them with Western philosophy. A somewhat more "clinical" approach can be found in Sigmund Freud’s work "The Future of an Illusion", which investigates the psychological causes and symptoms of religious belief and also the social functions of religious practice.