Last fall, Harvard University Press published Religion Without God by Ronald Dworkin, Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law. Published posthumously—Dworkin passed away on February 14, 2013—the book has drawn praise from reviewers, who have also taken the opportunity to celebrate the author’s life. As Stanley Fish of the New York Times wrote, “Ronald Dworkin, a professor of law and philosophy at New York University, was arguably the most influential legal philosopher of the past 50 years.”
The book is based on talks Dworkin delivered in December 2011 as part of the Einstein Lectures at the University of Bern in Switzerland. The talks—“Einstein’s Workshop,” “Faith and Physics,” and “Religion Without God”—explore what it means for both theists and atheists to share an attitude of awe in the face of cosmic mysteries. What does it mean to be a “religious atheist”?
In the months before and after publication, Religion Without God and Dworkin’s legacy have received a lot of media attention:
- “Dworkin offers a way into discussions of science and human spiritual endeavor that is actually engaging and interesting, not combative and dogmatic.” —Adam Frank, “Let's Get Creative And Redefine The Meaning Of Religion,” NPR, 5/21/13
- “Ronald Dworkin, a tribune of public justice, gave the lie to the old saw that you need God in order to be good.” —James Carroll, “Earnest atheists look for God,” The Boston Globe, 9/16/13
- “[H]is novel definition of religion may serve as a way for theists and religious atheists to engage in constructive conversation. Both camps will benefit from reading Dworkin’s engaging and philosophically rigorous analysis.” —Christopher McConell, Booklist, 10/1/13
- “Dworkin’s characteristically well-argued book raises many provocative questions worthy of further discussion.” —Publishers Weekly, 10/7/13
- “Anyone who read Dworkin or heard him lecture knows that he possessed a brilliant and elegant mind, conceptually sophisticated, analytically astute, and always at the service of a moral, legal, and political cause.” —Professor Moshe Halbertal, “Can You Have Religion Without God?,” The New Republic, 10/26/13
- “[The] insistence on looking for connections through argument, not giving up as soon as the going got tough, but thinking that the connections mattered enough to persevere in their pursuit was the motif of Dworkin's jurisprudence and the key to the unity of his philosophical work.” —Professor Jeremy Waldron, reviewing for The Guardian, 11/28/13
Watch his Einstein Lectures here.
Posted on December 20, 2013