ABSTRACT
Generations of humanists, historical materialists, psychoanalysts, feminists and (more recently) sociobiologists have all seemingly immeasurably cheapened the concerns of religion in modern times. Inspired, it appears, to free us from the supposed constraints of dogma, their results have more often than not never really engaged with religious concerns themselves (such interests are automatically screened off) but only their political or social effects: liberating us to enter a politically charged world only to now discover it framed within an existentially incomprehensible universe. It is arguable that, in the terms of the history of modern philosophy, the birth of this tendency has been most obviously observable in the influence – though not necessarily the substance – of Immanuel Kant’s thought.
