ABSTRACT
From archaeology to anthropology, philosophy to psychology, at their best the modern human sciences undermined calcified ideologies and opened up, even created, hitherto unimagined dimensions of human existence. Yet, as to some of their basic assumptions, the human sciences now operate as a social bulwark against fundamental spiritual and political renewal. The problem has not been the view, announced by Marx and taken on by non-Marxists generally, that the presupposition of all criticism is the criticism of religion. It has rather been the expectation, again shared with Marx, that thought would remain critical if it supposed the criticism of religion to be essentially completed. In the name of this error, ‘critical thought’ has dogmatically insulated itself from the challenge of the transcendent, while exempting the faithful from testing encounters with open-minded criticism.
