Full Description
Modern, liberal democracies in the West living under the rule of law and protection of human rights cannot articulate the very values from which they derive their legitimacy. These pre-political and pre-legal preconditions cannot be guaranteed, let alone be enforced by the state, but constitute nevertheless its moral and spiritual infrastructure. Until recently, a common background and horizon consisted in Christianity, but due to secularisation and globalisation, society has become increasingly multicultural and multireligious. The question can and should be raised how religion relates to these sources of normative order in society, how religion, politics and law relate to each other, and how social cohesion can be attained in society, given the growing varieties of religious experiences. In this book, a philosophical account of this question is carried out, on the one hand historically from Plato to the Enlightenment, on the other hand systematically and practically.
Contents
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ............................................................................. ix
List of Contributors ............................................................................ xi
Philosophical Refl ections on Religion, Politics and Law:
An Introduction ....................................................................................... 1
Bart C. Labuschagne and Reinhard W. Sonnenschmidt
PART A
PHILOSOPHICAL-HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES:
WITH VOEGELIN BACK TO PLATO, ARISTOTLE,
AUGUSTINE AND HEGEL
I. Eric Voegelin's Philosophy of Law and Ethics:
A Critique ................................................................................15
Andreas A.M. Kinneging
II. Plato's Political Ontology:
On the Nature of Man and Regime ........................................31
Benjamin Bilski
III. Religion and Order:
Philosophical Refl ections from Augustine to Hegel on
the Spiritual Sources of Law and Politics ................................71
Bart C. Labuschagne
PART B
POLITICO-RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVES:
A CRITICAL REAPPRAISAL OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT,
AND THE NEW APPROACH OF THE 'POLITICAL
SCIENCE OF RELIGION'
IV. Politics and Religion in the Philosophy
of the Enlightenment I:
Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke and Rousseau ...................................97
Claus-E. Bärsch
V. Politics and Religion in the Philosophy of the
Enlightenment II: Kant ......................................................129
Claus-E. Bärsch
VI. Basic Outlines of the 'Political Science of Religion' ..........167
Claus-E. Bärsch
PART C
SYSTEMATICAL-PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES:
ON EVIL, LOVE, VIOLENCE, TOTALITARIANISM
AND THE CURRENT MEANING OF
THE ENLIGHTENMENT
VII. The Diabolical Dimensions in the Shapes of
Political Reality .................................................................. 205
Peter Berghoff
VIII. Love and Violence:
Dialectical Refl ections on the Phenomenology
of the Crusade ....................................................................223
Timo J.M. Slootweg
IX. Totalitarianism and Radical Islamic
Ideologies ............................................................................257
David A.J. Suurland
X. The Enlightenment in Contemporary
Cultural Debate ..................................................................311
Paul Cliteur and Geoff Gordon
PART D
PRACTICAL-PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES:
DEALING WITH RELIGIOUS PLURALISM UNDER
THE CONSTITUTION OR: THE CHALLENGING
VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
IN MODERN DEMOCRACIES
XI. The Religious Aspects of the Founding of America:
A Design of Religion and Reason .......................................335
Detlef David Bauszus
XII. Taking Pluralism Seriously:
The US and the EU as Multicultural Democracies? ........ 363
Hans-Martien Th.D. ten Napel and Florian H. Karim Theissen
Labuschagne_FM.indd vi 1/20/2009 11:18:51 AM
CONTENTS vii
XIII. Law, Politics and Religion:
In Search of Criteria for Understanding
Modernity .......................................................................... 393
Reinhard W. Sonnenschmidt
XIV. From Transcendence to Introcendence:
The Consciousness of Political Reality and
Psycho-Esoteric Constructions of Salvation ......................415
Andreas Dordel and Andrea Ullrich
Name Index ......................................................................................447
Subject Index ....................................................................................449
