Introduction: Prolegomenon to Future Feminist Philosophies of Religions

Abstract

Where are all the philosophers of religion?1 In recent decades scholars in all disciplines have been moved both to rethink the fields in which we were trained and to develop and promote a whole range of interdisciplinary interests through the creation of women's studies programs. Philosophy of religion, however, has not yet emerged as a conspicuous area of criticism or renewal. In the form in which it is currently practiced, Anglo-American philosophy of religion suffers from a considerable constriction of interest. Scholarship in the field as it is traditionally conceived usually spans the same topics that are found in the undergraduate texts or anthologies: the nature and attributes of god, arguments for and against the existence of god, mysticism and religious experience, faith and reason, the problem of evil, cognitive challenges to the meaningfulness of religious language, and so forth. Virtually absent from the literature has been any level of reflection, either in terms of attention to gender as an analytic category, or inclusion of topics raised by women's lives or otherwise of interest to women. In marked contrast to the rapidly growing area of feminist theology, where explicit attention to theory, gender relations, and women's experience abounds, philosophy of religion in its standard form has been distressingly all of a kind: male-authored, mainstream, monochromatic, and myopic in its selection of topics. In contrast as well to the interdisciplinary and cross-cultural space in which the field of religious studies has operated for at least two decades, philosophy of religion has been largely Eurocentric and Anglo-American in its orientation. This special issue of Hypatia is conceived as a first step toward redefining the field of philosophy of religion, its standard topics, and its exclusively Western if not Christian focus. Indeed, this Special Issue stands as the first and, so far as we know, only collection of articles devoted to the topic of philosophy of religion. In the course of conceiving this project, Marilyn Thie and I had frequent occasion to ask ourselves, Where are all the philosophers of religion? There are distinguished women in philosophy of religion-e.g., Eleonore Stump and Marilyn McCord Adams-but they do not do philosophy of religion.