Philosophy of Lived Religion: The Next Revolution?

Abstract

Although the philosophy of religion is finally on its way to becoming religiously diversified, such diversification is only half the battle: injustices of creed have been addressed while injustices of class remain. If philosophy of religion is to be the philosophy of all religion, not just the philosophy of theism or of literate elites, then philosophy of religion needs to pay attention to the religious reasons and ideas of all religions and all classes, and to pay attention to those reasons and ideas as they live in the lives of these individuals and communities. This is what I call philosophy of lived religion: the philosophical study of all acts of religious reason-giving, privileging contemporary, ordinary, and spoken acts of religious reason-giving over past, elite, and written ones. In this essay I sketch the concept of philosophy of lived religion, focusing on the basic questions that humans typically ask (what, who, when, where, how, why), and responding to anticipated questions and issues along the way.