Drawing the Boundaries of the Philosophy of Religion
Defining a discipline should also include revealing its subject, method, purpose, and its similarities and differences with other disciplines. Unless these are done, the attempt to define the discipline can in itself raise many potential problems. Attempts to define the philosophy of religion often miss these potential problems.
The subject of the philosophy of religion is religion, and the method is philosophy. This discipline, which deals with all concepts and fields of study related to religion, with a philosophical method and perspective; It is one of the fastest-growing fields of cognitive sciences in recent years, including the psychology of religion, anthropology of religion and sociology of religion, together with the fields of study dealing with faith. While the number of professional philosophers specializing in the philosophy of religion was relatively few 60 years ago, today there are philosophers who do considerable work in many fields at the same time. (Graham Oppy, Paul Draper, Michael Martin, William Lane Craig, Richard Swinburne, Alvin Plantinga etc.) So much so that the philosophy of religion seems to be one of the most comprehensive fields of philosophy. Directly with other philosophical fields of philosophy of religion, such as philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, epistemology, ethics or metaphysics; It is almost impossible not to be indirectly related to non-philosophical disciplines such as physics and neurology. For this reason, philosophers of religion have been careful to have information about other fields mentioned at a minimum level.
What is Religion?
Philosophers of religion have to some extent also have had to reflect on what religion is. However, it is not easy to define religion. On this subject, the American sociologist John Milton Yinger says: “Any definition of religion probably satisfies only its author.” (1) While this sentence illustrates the difficulty of defining religion, it can also help us understand the motivation behind philosophers of religion choosing more specific topics.
We can roughly define religion as follows: Religion is the sum of the individual or collective beliefs, actions and experiences of people gathered around some idea of ultimate reality/truth. In this respect, for some believers, religion is seen as the only way to make sense of life.
In Trigg's words; “Religion, however otherwise viewed, embodies social actions and totalities of belief expressed in certain modes of life.” (2nd)
These attempts at definition emphasize the social aspect of religion; such that while religion can be a clear source of division/struggle or undesirable behaviors, it also encourages social solidarity in some aspects and generates desired behaviors.
