Reflections on the Religious, the Ethical, and the Political

By (author) Calvin O. Schrag Foreword by Lenore Langsdorf Edited by Michael Paradiso-Michau

Publication date:

14 December 2012

Length of book:

214 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9780739145937

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 Calvin O.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. The topics of religion, ethics, and politics have served as pivot points throughout Schrag’s career in the academy, which spans half a century.

Foreword by Lenore Langsdorf
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Reflections on the Religious, the Ethical, and the Political: An Interview
Part 1: Religion and the Post-Secular Turn in Continental Philosophy
Introduction
Chapter 1: Ontology and the Possibility of Religious Knowledge
Chapter 2: The Kierkegaard Effect in the Shaping of the Contours of Modernity
Chapter 3: The Grammar of Transcendence
Chapter 4: Transcendence and Transversality
Chapter 5: The Problem of Being and the Question about God
Chapter 6: Otherness and the Problem of Evil: How Does That Which Is Other Become Evil?
Part 2: Transvaluation of the Ethical and the Political
Introduction
Chapter 7: The Structure of Moral Experience: A Phenomenological and Existential Analysis
Chapter 8: Alterity and the Gift
Chapter 9: On the Ethics of the Gift: Acknowledgement and Response
Chapter 10: Toward a Phenomenology of Postnational Identity
Chapter 11: A Thought Experiment on Cross-Cultural Dialogue and Peacemaking
Chapter 12: Comparative Philosophy and the Politics of Otherness
Chapter 13: Geophilosophy, the Lifeworld, and the Political
Chapter 14: The Topology of Hope
Bibliography
Index
About the Author and Editor

Reflections on the Religious, the Ethical, and the Political also displays the philosophical virtues that Schrag’s readers have come to expect of his writing. Consisting primarily of previously published essays, this book offers a rich introduction to some of Schrag’s key ideas: the notion of “transversality,” “the ethic of the fitting response,” and “postnational identity.” Praise is due to Michael R. Paradiso-Michau for his editorial work in so carefully selecting the essays that are included in this volume. These essays span much of Schrag’s career and, accordingly, do a nice job of showing how Schrag’s ideas have importantly remained consistent in some general ways and yet changed and developed in other ways. . . .In the end, this is a book worth reading and taking seriously. It is clearly written, well argued, and attentive to persistent questions in religious, ethical, and political existence. Paradiso-Michau has done philosophy a service by bringing together these valuable essays by an important philosopher