Philosophy of Religion in the late works of Hegel and Schelling: Dimensions of Rational Theology, Epistemology and Theory of Meaning

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Friedrich Hermanni
• Subject Area: Protestant Theology
• Term: from 2017 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 325425122

This project determines and assesses the points of agreement and the points of difference between Hegel and Schellings mature philosophies of religion. The necessity of this task is made evident not only in the relatively small number of studies on the subject but also in their opposing conclusions. In light of this need for clarification, this research project will develop a unique approach that has not yet been explored. Hegels and Schellings fundamental conceptions of the philosophy of religion will be systematically reconstructed in connection to their respective engagements a) with rational theology and Kants criticism of it (the rational theological level), b) with positions of immediate knowledge of God that radically reject discursive knowledge of God (the epistemological level) and c) with tendencies towards the decentralization of the question regarding knowledge in religion in favor of moral-practical, aesthetic or existential emphases (the level of theory of meaning). This unique approach is enabled by the fact that both Hegel and Schelling developed their late philosophies of religion in critical and systematic analysis of these three lines of thought in the philosophy of religion. With this approach of reconstruction, a misconstrued alienation of Hegel or Schelling through a subsumation of their philosophies under previous positions can be avoided. Furthermore, the project unlocks the great potential for clarification regarding the contemporary significance of Hegels and Schellings later philosophies of religion (both in their points of agreement and in their difference). Indeed, contemporary philosophy of religion seems to operate in the field of tension between the explication of a discursive knowledge of God, a defense of immediate experience of God and (more decidedly today than in the early 19thcentury) a non-cognitivist and non-realist interpretation of religion.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants