Religion and European Philosophy: Key Thinkers from Kant to Žižek

possible?4 If human reason, when abstracted

Kant’s critical turn towards the transcendental subject—exploring how the nature of human thinking imposes conditions upon all understanding of reality—is the precursor to all that follows.

“People talk about the return of religion, that’s a mistake. It didn’t return because it never went away” (Hoffman and Taylor, 2008).

The question of religion, as the essays included in this volume show, will remain live for the thinkers that follow in Kant’s footsteps,

it is also worth recognizing that the question of religion, generally speaking, has been part and parcel of the European philosophical tradition from its inception.

“Christianity’s history is essentially that of its parasite—that is to say, of capitalism”

Benjamin takes issue with Weber’s thesis concerning the development of capitalism as conditioned by Christianity. For Benjamin, the relationship is stronger: capitalism does not simply emerge out of Christianity, as a sort of by-product, but is rather a religious phenomenon in its own right, one that draws on, but also twists and reverses, Christia

Thus, the political secularization of theological concepts … does nothing but displace the heavenly monarchy onto an earthly monarchy, leaving its power intact”

One could argue, of course, that the analogy between the two is just that, an analogy, with little real explanatory force behind it. To do so, however, is to mistake content for form and its power.