Current course offerings

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Course description

This course explores modern philosophical and psychological arguments and theories about belief and unbelief in Western religious traditions. Starting from the Enlightenment and continuing to the present day, we examine the development of historical, anthropological, sociogenic, philosophical and psychogenic accounts of the origins and reasons for or against belief in God and/or gods. Focussed around reading texts by David Hume, Ludwig Feuerbach, Sigmund Freud, William James, Rudolph Otto, Carl Jung, Weston La Barre, Julian Jaynes, Martin Buber, Pascal Boyer and others, this course raises questions about the broad foundations and implications of the West's longstanding efforts to understand religion through the secular, naturalistic paradigm of the human sciences. Students will develop their understanding of these issues through close textual analysis and contextualisation and in-class discussion and debate.

Archived offerings