Recovering Religious Concepts

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

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2. Where We Are: at the Mercy of Method

   • D. Z. Phillips

   Pages 1-15

3. Return of the Monstrous Illusion

   • D. Z. Phillips

   Pages 16-23

4. Epistemic Practices: the Retreat from Reality

   • D. Z. Phillips

   Pages 24-44

5. From World to God? Searching for Mediation

   • D. Z. Phillips

   Pages 45-62

6. The Friends of Cleanthes: a Case of Conceptual Poverty

   • D. Z. Phillips

   Pages 63-81

7. Revelation and the Loss of Authority

   • D. Z. Phillips

   Pages 82-102

8. Turning God into one Devil of a Problem

   • D. Z. Phillips

   Pages 103-128

9. Miracles and Open-Door Epistemology

   • D. Z. Phillips

   Pages 129-137

10. The Dislocated Soul and Immortality

    • D. Z. Phillips

    Pages 138-156

11. The World and ‘I’

    • D. Z. Phillips

    Pages 157-170

12. The Radiance of a False Eternity

    • D. Z. Phillips

    Pages 171-190

13. In the Beginning was the Proposition – In the Beginning was the Choice – In the Beginning was the Dance

    • D. Z. Phillips

    Pages 191-210

14. God and Concept-Formation

    • D. Z. Phillips

    Pages 211-226

15. Where Are the Gods Now? Time for Judgement

    • D. Z. Phillips

    Pages 227-241

16. Anglo-American Philosophical Culture: Religion and the Reception of Wittgenstein

    • D. Z. Phillips

    Pages 242-259

17. Back Matter

    Pages 260-272

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Here it is argued that we need to recover concepts from the distortions of philosophy. In this collection the author shows the disastrous consequences for an understanding of religion of the epistemic divides which can be found in contemporary philosophy of religion; divides between belief and practice, the world and God, religious experience and religious contexts. By closing these divides religious significance is given its proper place.

• god
• immortality
• philosophy of religion
• religion

• University of Wales, Swansea, UK

  D. Z. Phillips

• Claremont Graduate University, USA

  D. Z. Phillips

D. Z. PHILLIPS is Danforth Professor of Philosophy of Religion, Claremont Graduate School, California. and Rush Rhees Research Professor, University of Wales, Swansea. His publications include The Concept of Prayer; Faith and Philosophical Enquiry; Death and Immortality; Moral Practices (with H.O. Mounce); Sense and Delusion (with Ilham Dilman); Athronyddu am Grefydd; Religion Without Explanation; Through the Darkening Glass; Dramâu Gwenlyn Parry; Belief, Change and Forms of Life; R.S.Thomas: Poet of the Hidden God; Faith After Foundationalism; From Fantasy to Faith; Interventions in Ethics; Wittgenstein and Religion; Writers of Wales: J.R. Jones; Introducing Philosophy and The Challenge of Scepticism.

Policies and ethics