num_pages: 213
description: For all its thoroughly secular form, religious motifs play a much more significant part in a good deal of recent philosophy than might at first appear. Fergus Kerr's study – which is derived from his highly regarded Stanton lectures, delivered in the University of Cambridge in 1994/5 - focuses on the more or less obvious theological commitments of several much-discussed contemporary philosophers. By so doing, the author daringly extends the agenda of what is usually considered to be 'philosophy of religion'. Examining in turn Martha Nussbaum, Martin Heidegger, Iris Murdoch, Luce Irigaray, Stanley Cavell and Charles Taylor - and reading their respective stories in the light of Karl Barth's notion that 'transcending our humanity only makes us more human than ever' - Kerr shows that they all, to a greater or lesser degree, are concerned with the issue of human transcendence: the 'immortal longings' of the title. The ramifications of his study are extensive: even if philosophy is not at bottom theology, as von Balthasar once claimed, the theological preconceptions in much modern philosophy would seem to deserve considerably more attention that they have received hitherto.
language: English
title: Immortal Longings: Versions of Transcending Humanity
titlecomplete: Immortal Longings: Versions of Transcending Humanity
ratings_count: 10
publisher: S.P.C.K. Publishing