Reflections on the Religious, the Ethical, and the Political (Paperback)

Reflections on the Religious, the Ethical, and the Political presents fourteen essays devoted to the interconnected topics of religion, ethics, and politics, along with an introductory interview with the author regarding his philosophical development over the years. This volume serves two interconnected purposes: as an introduction or reintroduction to Professor Schrag's intellectual contributions to a critical consideration of these three topics, and as a critical companion and supplement to Schrag's published work on these topics, starting with Existence and Freedom (1961), working all the way through to Doing Philosophy with Others (2010). The topics of religion, ethics, and politics have served as pivot points throughout Schrag's career in the academy, which spans half a century. Part One, Religion and the Post-Secular Turn in Continental Philosophy, includes contributions to the traditions of philosophical discussion regarding matters of ontology, religious epistemology, existentialism, transcendence, and the problem of evil, all informed by the myriad resources of twentieth-century philosophy.Part Two, Transvaluation of the Ethical and the Political, considers topics of moral experience, interpersonal alterity, cross-cultural dialogue, and postnational identity, all against the backdrop of a radicalized understanding of the gift. Throughout, this volume gives voice to a distinctive Schragean philosophy of religion, morality, and political praxis. This approach is heavily rooted in a critical dialogue with all relevant modes of philosophical and theological discourse, including phenomenology, existentialism, hermeneutics, critical social theory, postmodernism, deconstruction, and postsecular philosophy of religion. In conversation with the post/modern and deconstructive approaches that held sway during the second half of the twentieth century, Schrag charts a transversal path that reenergizes the philosophy of the human subject in its religious, ethical, and political dimensions.