Introduction

Abstract

This book will survey the work of twentieth-century Continental philosophy and its potential impact on philosophy of religion as it is practised predominantly in English-speaking countries. The term “Continental philosophy,” insofar as it refers to religion, can be ascribed to a tradition of thought that dates from the time of Kant, resulting from the demise of natural theology, where it had been assumed that human beings could have knowledge of God. Other philosophers connected with this tradition who have specific association with the subject of religion, if not necessarily an affinity for it, are Hegel, Nietzsche, and Kierkegaard. In the first half of the twentieth century, the major philosophers identified with this philosophy are Husserl and Heidegger, and then, more recently, from the 1970s onwards, French thinkers such as Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault are included, as well as Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva. The Frankfurt school of critical theory, exemplified at the present time by the work of Jürgen Habermas, has also not been without some influence.