Philosophy of Religion
After Freud: Phantasy and Imagination in the Philosophy of Religion
By , Oxford Brookes University (November 2007)
Section: Philosophy of Religion
Subjects: Philosophy, Religion.
Places: Europe, Western Europe.
Abstract
Philosophers of religion have tended to focus on Freud's dismissal of religion as an illusion, thus characterising his account as primarily hostile. Those who wish to engage with psychoanalytic ideas in order to understand religion in a more positive way have tended to look to later psychoanalysts for more sympathetic sources. This paper suggests that other aspects of Freud's own writings might, surprisingly, provide such tools. In particular, a more subtle understanding of the relationship between illusion and reality emerges in his theory, that itself offers a useful way of understanding the meaning and significance of religion for the human animal. By exploring these sources a view of religion emerges which connects it closely with the processes of imagination and creativity. Under this view, religion is more than just a set of hypotheses to be proved or disproved. In religion, we have access to the most deeply rooted wishes and anxieties of the human heart, and thus its investigation enables a deeper understanding of what it is to be a human being.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2007.00114.x
This article abstract has been viewed 5520 times.
Top 5 related articles
-
Can Religious Experience Provide Justification for the Belief in God? The Debate in Contemporary Analytic Philosophy
By , Hong Kong Baptist University
(Vol. 1, November 2006)
Philosophy Compass -
Science and Religion: Philosophical Issues
By , Luther Seminary
(Vol. 2, November 2007)
Philosophy Compass -
Following God without Belief: Moral Objections to Agnostic Religious Commitment
By , 304 Rainbow Drive, Carrboro, NC 27510, USA.
(Vol. 3, February 2008)
Philosophy Compass -
The Fine-Tuning Argument
By , The University of Mississippi
(Vol. 3, December 2008)
Philosophy Compass -
Buck-Passing Accounts of Value
By , University of Leeds
(Vol. 4, September 2009)
Philosophy Compass
Top 5 Related Blackwell Reference Chapters
The Dialectic of Foundationalism and Coherentism
My aim in this paper is to explore the dispute between foundationalism and coherentism and attempt a ...
By Laurence BonJour
Decision Theory and Degree of Belief<sup>1</sup>
Rationality is standardly divided into the practical and the theoretical. Practical rationality concerns ...
By Piers Rawling
From The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of the Social Sciences
Hume on Belief in the External World
We believe that there exists an external world where there are flowers in their first bloom, high green ...
By MICHEL MALHERBE
From A Companion to Hume
Naturalistic explanations of theistic belief
Naturalism denies that there are any spiritual or supernatural realities. There are, that is, no purely ...
By KAI NIELSEN
Religious Belief
During the medieval period, a single institutionalized Church oversaw the spiritual welfare of most of ...
By Marilyn Corrie