Lecture, four hours. Examination of how various traditions of modern critical thought inform academic study of religion, with primary focus on philosophical analysis of religious belief and practice and its relation to other areas of theoretical discussion, such as philosophy of language, discourse analysis, epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, practice theory, and political theory. Topics may include nature of religious experience and its epistemic status, embodiment and religious self, relationship between knowledge, faith, and doubt, nature and function of religious language, relationship between science and religion, religious belief and standards of rational discourse, theoretical approaches to problems of religious diversity and competing truth claims, formation of religious and secular in modernity. P/NP or letter grading.