Heidegger's Phenomenology of Religion: Realism and Cultural Criticism

Throughout his long and controversial career, Martin Heidegger developed a substantial contribution to the phenomenology of religion. In Heidegger's Phenomenology of Religion, Benjamin D. Crowe examines the key concepts and developmental phases that characterized Heidegger's work. Crowe shows that Heidegger's account of the meaning and structure of religious life belongs to his larger project of exposing and criticizing the fundamental assumptions of late modern culture. He reveals Heidegger as a realist through careful readings of his views on religious attitudes and activities. Crowe challenges interpretations of Heidegger's early efforts in the phenomenology of religion and later writings on religion, including discussions of Greek religion and Hölderlin's poetry. This book is sure to spark discussion and debate as Heidegger's work in religion and the philosophy of religion becomes increasingly important to scholars and beyond.

"[This book] will be useful for those interested in the philosophy of religion, or in the philosophy of Heidegger, or in criticism of the culture of modernity." --Robert Dostal, Bryn Mawr College Indiana University Press Indiana University Press Indiana University Press

Benjamin D. Crowe teaches in the philosophy department at the University of Utah. He is author of Heidegger's Religious Origins (IUP, 2006).

Contents

Acknowledgments

List of Abbreviations of Works by Heidegger

Introduction

1. Religion and Cultural Criticism

The Conceptual Framework for Heidegger's Cultural Criticism

Modernity and Subjectivism

Modernity and Theology

Philosophical Voices of Modernity: Neo-Kantianism and Nietzsche

Anti-Realism and Religion

2. Heidegger's Early Phenomenology of Religion

Fundamental Themes

Being-in-the-world

The "Grace-Character" of Religious Life

The "Givenness" or "Objecthood" of God

Influences

Friedrich Schleiermacher: Realism and Phenomenological Method

Edmund Husserl

Adolf Reinach

Heidegger's Earliest Sketches of a Phenomenology of Religion

Winter Semester 19201921: Heidegger's Lectures on Pauline Christianity

Summer Semester 1921: Heidegger's Lectures on Augustine

3. Heidegger's Later Phenomenology of Religion

New Elements, Persisting Project

The Concept of "The Holy"

Phenomenology of Greek Religion

The "Gods"

Religion and "Being-in-the-World" in Heidegger's Later Works

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index