Philosophy of religion after Kant and Kierkegaard

At first sight the scope of this conference’s sixth and final topic seems clear enough: it calls for an examination of major developments in the philosophy of religion during the 150–200 years since Kant and Kierkegaard. Two ambiguities, however, must be clarified before the topic’s scope can be properly determined. The first ambiguity concerns the role of the word ‘after’ in the title. For this little word conveys an interesting dual meaning: ‘after’ can mean either ‘along the lines of (as in ‘Kant takes after his mother’) or ‘subsequent to’ (as in ‘Kierkegaard was born after Kant died’). For reasons that will become apparent as we proceed, I shall take the word to have both meanings, dealing specifically with the implications of the former in section 2 and with those of the latter in section 3.