Warning! Shameless plug to follow...
In the last few years I've looked at numerous syllabi used in philosophy of religion courses. Besides the usual caveats, grading scales, and policies, these syllabi often make nods towards the objective of thinking philosophically about religion. However, 'religion' is, in almost all cases, largely restricted to western theism. One of the challenges of breaking out of this mold is that most introductory textbooks and readers are geared towards philosophy of religion in the western context. Up until now it has been difficult to know where to start if you wanted to include more non-Western sources. Enter Andrew Eshleman's edit volume Readings in the Philosophy of Religion: East Meets West from Blackwell. The volume has a nice selection of readings from names that we've all come to know like Swinburne, Plantinga, Mackie, Alston, Rowe, Hick, Craig, Paley, and more. Interspersed throughout each section though are selections from Hindu, Daoist, Confucian, and Buddhist, thinkers. Frankly this is a book that has probably been long overdue.
Full disclosure: Eshleman was one of my professors as an undergrad and I read drafts of the introductory material for the book. However, I'd have plugged the book in any case because such a volume deserves to be brought to broader attention.
Overall, this looks like a pretty good collection. I would have like to have seen some work from Bhakti or Tantric traditions, and I can think of a couple of classical Indian philosophers who had things to say that would fit in Parts III or IV.
These however are minor quibbles, and this is certainly one of the texts I'll be considering if and when I teach a phil of religion course.
Blackwell's Companion to Philosophy of Religion and K. Yandell's book Philosophy of Religion have similarly broad view. But they are not collections of classical readings.
Yandell's book is one of the exceptions out there. But as you point out it's not a reader, and I for the most part dislike teaching straight from textbooks. However, I'd think that Yandell's book could act as a nice companion to the reader.
Two other texts have recently come out that similarly combine contemporary analytic philosophy of religion with non-Western entries and topics, both edited by Chad Meister and Paul Copan:
-Philosophy of Religion: Classic and Contemporary Issues (Blackwell 2007).
-Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Religion (Routledge 2007).
The Blackwell compilation would be good for a course in philosophy of religion (296 pp.), while the Routledge one would be a great reference resource (714 pp.).
D.C.
The Blackwell compilation exemplifies what I was talking about in my initial post. It's largely a selection of readings from names we all are now familiar with (nothing wrong with that) and it has one selection devoted to Eastern Philosophy of Religion. I suppose it's better than nothing, but if one is looking to teach a cross cultural course it would fall far short.
Has anyone tried Gary E. Kessler's Philosophy of Religion: Toward a Global Perspective from Wadsworth? It's arranged by topic, with classic and contemporary readings from a wide variety of perspectives - Eastern, Western,African and Native American, continental and analytical. I haven't ever used it as a set-text myself, but then it's been years since I taught a Philosophy of Religion class. I have an edition published in 1999, I'm sure it has been up-dated since then.
I've never used the Kessler, but I know that it has never been updated.
Since people seem to want to take this as an opportunity to plug their favorite text, I should mention that if you aren't going cross cultural the Pojman anthology is quite good and has been taken over by Michael Rea.
P.S. I just compared the list of contents for each book. The details for Eshleman's '...East Meets West' are available here:
http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/book.asp?ref=9781405147163&site=1
Wadsworth only give chapter titles on their web-site, but I have my copy of Kessler's book in front of me. There is a lot of overlap, both in terms of topics and authors, but I'll focus on the differences.
As the titles suggest, Kessler offers wider geographical coverage - African, Native American, Latin American. This wider coverage means that some classic sources from East and West are not included: no Plato, Augustine or Nagarjuna, for example.
In terms of topics, I particularly like the fact that Eshleman has a section 'Questioning the Foundations of Enquiry...' that deals with anti-realism and related issues: I appreciate this section, because that was the topic of my doctoral dissertation. Of course, Kessler also covers some topics that Eshleman doesn't - e.g. a section on religious language, and a section devoted to 'What is religion?'
Matthew,
True, the Meister/Copan Blackwell text would not work for a cross-cultural course, but I think it is noteworthy that they are at least starting to break the Western analytic mold a bit. I believe they also have a feminist contribution as well. It would probably still work better for an intro to philosophy of religion course, but it does tip its hat to the cross-cultural work that needs to be done.
DC