Marxism and religion in Ernst Bloch’s social philosophy
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24866/1997-2857/2025-2/88-98Keywords:
Ernst Bloch, Marxism, social philosophy, religion, atheism, philosophy of religionAbstract
This article attempts to reconstruct the key points of Ernst Bloch’s philosophy of religion within the broader context of his Marxist philosophy through an analysis of his two principal works on the subject – «The Principle of Hope» and «Atheism in Christianity». The author concludes that Bloch’s philosophy of religion can be characterized as postsecular. It presents an alternative approach to understanding religion that, on one hand, moves beyond orthodox Marxist rejection of religion, while on the other, highlights religion’s enduring transformative potential for utopian thought.
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28. Habermas, J., 2008. Notes on post‐secular society. New Perspectives Quarterly, Vol. 25, no. 4, pp. 17–29.
29. Harris, M.M., 2009. Behind the barricades with Lenin? Making sense of the Marxist turn to Christianity in the literature classroom. Christianity & Literature, Vol. 58, no. 2, pp. 220–226.
30. Hudson, W., 1982. The Marxist philosophy of Ernst Bloch. London: Macmillan Press.
31. Jameson, F., 2007. The political unconscious: narrative as a socially symbolic act. London: Routledge.
32. Löwy, M., 1998. Friedrich Engels on religion and class struggle. Science & Society, Vol. 62, no. 1, pp. 79–87.
33. Löwy, M., 2016, Marxism and Religion: Opium of the People? URL: https://demokratikmodernite.org/marxism-and-religion-opium-of-the-people/
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35. Moylan, T., 1990. Bloch against Bloch: the theological reception of Das Prinzip Hoffnung and the liberation of the utopian function. Utopian Studies, Vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 27–51.
36. Münster, A., 2004. Ernst Bloch: Eine politische Biographie. Berlin: Philo.
37. Pannekoek, A. Socialism and religion. URL: https://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1907/socialism-religion.htm
38. Petterson, C., 2022. Bloch’s Münzer and the horizons of history. Critical Research on Religion, Vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 339–344.
39. Pinnock, S.K., 2002. Beyond theodicy: Jewish and Christian continental thinkers respond to the Holocaust. Albany State University of New York Press.
40. Torpey, J., 2010. A (post-) secular age? Religion and the two exceptionalisms. Social Research, Vol. 77, no. 1, pp. 269–296.
41. Toscano, A., 2010. Beyond abstraction: Marx and the critique of the critique of religion. Historical Materialism, Vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 3–29.
42. West, T.H., 1991. Ultimate hope without God: the atheistic eschatology of Ernst Bloch. New York: Peter Lang.
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