Feuerbach and the Interpretation of Religion

Ludwig Feuerbach is traditionally regarded as a significant but transitional figure in the development of nineteenth-century German thought. Readings of Feuerbach’s The Essence of Christianity tend to focus on those features which made it seem liberating to the Young Hegelians: namely, its criticism of reification as abstraction, and its interpretation of religion as alienation. In this book, Van Harvey claims that this is a limited and inadequate view of Feuerbach’s work, especially of his critique of religion. The author argues that Feuerbach’s philosophical development led him to a much more complex and interesting theory of religion which he expounded in works which have been virtually ignored hitherto. By exploring these works, Harvey gives them a significant contemporary re-statement, and brings Feuerbach into conversation with a number of modern theorists of religion.

• A revisionist work on Feuerbach by a giant figure in American religious studies • The inaugural book in an important series • Puts an entirely different perspective on Feuerbach’s significance by exploring works by him which have been hitherto overlooked

Acknowledgements; Note on the text and abbreviations; Introduction; 1. ‘Projection’ in The Essence of Christianity; 2. The interpretative strategy informing The Essence of Christianity; 3. The criticism of religion in The Essence of Christianity; 4. Feuerbach’s intellectual development; 5. The new bipolar model of religion; 6. The new interpretative strategy; 7. Feuerbach and contemporary projection theories; 8. Feuerbach, anthropomorphism, and the need for religious illusion; Select bibliography; Index.