Description
Book SynopsisAs philosophers in the continental tradition have taken an interest in the return of religion, anthropologists and sociologists have rejected the once-dominant secularization thesis. Bradley B. Onishi connects these lines of thought to reveal how philosophy’s religious investigations have enabled critical reflections on the category of the secular.
Trade ReviewThe Sacrality of the Secular is a sophisticated study of religious resources implicit in ostensibly secular culture. Onishi demonstrates how the American appropriation of Heidegger and post-Heideggerian philosophy contributed to “the religious turn” in continental philosophy. The significance of this work extends far beyond the field of religious studies. Through a critical reassessment of theories of modernization and disenchantment, Onishi charts new directions for cultural inquiry at a time when the humanities have lost their way. -- Mark C. Taylor, Columbia University
In
The Sacrality of the Secular, Bradley B. Onishi seeks to answer two questions: Does secularity equate to disenchantment? And what and how does philosophy of religion, in particular continental philosophy of religion, contribute to religious studies? Onishi has done a brilliant job at the difficult task of bringing these two questions together, showing how the answer to the second opens the path for a creative response to the impasses to which the first has come. -- Jeffrey Kosky, Washington and Lee University
In his timely and welcome book, Onishi argues persuasively that philosophers of religion working out of continental philosophy have significant contributions to make to the study of religion and to the study of the modern opposition between the religious and the secular. -- Tyler Roberts, Grinnell College
Onishi's book is clearly written, offers a thoughtful introduction to the field of continental philosophy of religion, and lays out a coherent case for why the secular can be sacred on its own terms. -- Anthony D. Traylor * Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *
Valuable as a contribution to philosophical research on secularity and as a survey of the Continental philosophy of religion after Heidegger. * Choice *
Onishi’s rewriting of the history of the field nevertheless provides a constructive, and for that reason welcome vision for the future of philosophy of religion. * Journal of Religion *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Philosophy’s “Turn to Religion” and Secularities
1. Different Worlds: Weber, Heidegger, and the Meaning of Life
2. Philosophizing with Religion: Secular Reenchantment in the Early Heidegger
3. Excendence and Heterology: Religious and Secular in Interwar Paris
4. A Prophet of the Impossible: Bataille’s Mystical Turn and Continental Philosophy of Religion
5. The Sacrality of the Secular: On the History and End of Philosophy of Religion
Conclusion: Contemporary Philosophy of Religion and Religious Studies—Three Examples
Notes
Bibliography
Index
