Description
Are we living in a ‘post-secular age’, and can phenomenology help us better understand the discontents of secularism? From Habermas’ claim that the secular hypothesis has failed for democratic reasons to the fact that religion, far from its predicted dwindling, is as strong as ever (or even stronger than before), some have concluded that secularism as we know it is over. Others have questioned whether we have ever truly been secular, if the concept applies only to European societies, or whether the very notion of religiosity is merely a weapon of pacification in the hands of Western universalism. The post-secular notion thus lingers between sociological fact and philosophical theory, and it is the latter that we need to investigate if we want to confront the challenges that any ‘return of religion’ entails.
Although phenomenology has furnished manifold devices to rethink religious experience in a post-metaphysical way, its investigations often remain individualistic and beholden to unproductive dichotomies. This volume assembles investigations into secularism’s discontents by addressing religion’s role in forming the fabric of contemporary societies and unveiling new constellations of faith and reason beyond many beloved modernist dichotomies (e.g. theism/atheism, myth/Enlightenment, fundamentalism/tolerance) that often go under-investigated.
This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Philosophical Studies.
Table of Contents
Introduction – Phenomenology and the Post-secular Turn: Reconsidering the ‘Return of the Religious’ Michael Staudigl and Jason W. Alvis
1. The Role of the Moral Emotions in Our Social and Political Practices Anthony J. Steinbock
2. Deep Secularism, Faith, and Spirit James G. Hart
3. Personally Speaking . . . Kierkegaardian Postmodernism and the Messiness of Religious Existence J. A. Simmons
4. How to Overcome the World: Henry, Heidegger, and the Post-Secular Jason W. Alvis
5. Philosophical Reflections on the Shaping of Identity in Fundamentalist Religious Communities Christina M. Gschwandtner
6. Murdering Truth: ‘Postsecular’ Perspectives on Theology and Violence Robyn Horner
7. On Seizing the Source: Toward a Phenomenology of Religious Violence Michael Staudigl
8. From Mystery to Laughter to Trembling Generosity: Agono-Pluralistic Ethics in Connolly v. Levinas (and the Possibilities for Atheist-Theist Respect) Sarah Pessin
Afterword – On Secularism and its Discontents: Reconsidering the ‘Return of the Religious’ Michael Staudigl and Jason W. Alvis
