Van Norden, Bryan W. 2001. “Mencius and Augustine on Evil: A Test Case for
Comparative Philosophy.” In Two Roads to Wisdom, ed. Bo Mou, 313–36. Chicago:
Open Court.
Wainwright, William J. 2000. “Religious Experience and Religious Pluralism.” In The
Philosophical Challenge of Religious Diversity, ed. Philip L. Quinn and Kevin Meeker,
218–25. New York: Oxford University Press.
Waldron, Jeremy. 1988. “Locke: Toleration and the Rationality of Persecution.” In
Justifying Toleration: Conceptual and Historical Perspectives, ed. Susan Mendus, 61–86.
Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Wolff, Christian. [1721] 1992. Discourse on the Practical Philosophy of the Chinese. In
Moral Enlightenment: Leibniz and Wolff on China (Monumenta Serica Monograph
Series). Ed. and trans. Julia Ching and Willard G. Oxtoby. Nettelal, Germany: Steyler
Verlag.
Yearley, Lee H. 1990. Mencius and Aquinas: Theories of Virtue and Conceptions of
Courage. Albany: State University of New York Press.
end p.417

end p.418

PART II APPROACHES

17 ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

William Hasker

Analytic philosophy of religion was gestated in the 1940s, born in the early 1950s, spent
its childhood in the 1960s and its adolescence in the 1970s and early 1980s. Since then it
has grown into adulthood, and it reached the turn of the millennium in a state of vigorous
maturity, with decline and senile degeneration nowhere in sight.
Like all metaphors, this one has its limitations. One could hardly describe the
philosophical writings of the earlier stages as childish, let alone infantile. But the field of
study itself was discernibly immature, and since then there has been notable progress
both in the topics addressed and in the manner of treating them. This essay divides the
history into three phases, characterized by differences in the subject matter most actively
discussed. In the first phase, lasting until about 1965, the overwhelming preoccupation
was with religious language, especially with the cognitive meaningfulness of such
language. In the second phase, lasting through the early 1980s, much effort was focused
on what may be termed the “philosophy of theism.” In the most recent period there has
been a notable diversification, and the field now embraces a greater variety of topics than
at any previous time.