What Is the "Subaltern" of the Philosophy of Religion?

Abstract

Philosophy of religion concerns itself with certain questions arising from the traditional tussle between the judgment of reason and the commitment to faith, augmented by disputes over whether it is language and conceptual analysis or some direct intuitive experience that provides access to the truth claims underpinning specific scriptural utterances, as articulated in philosophical (or "natural") theology. The late Ninian Smart lamented that philosophy of religion as conventionally practiced in discipline-bounded departments rested on two mistakes, namely its singular focus on problems of natural theology (in the context of Western theodicy) and, apropos of this, its inattentiveness to reli..