Civil Religion In Modern Political Philosophy

Author : Ronald Beiner
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 449 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2010-10-25
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781139492614

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Civil Religion by Ronald Beiner Pdf

Civil Religion offers philosophical commentaries on more than twenty thinkers stretching from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. It examines four important traditions within the history of modern political philosophy. The civil religion tradition, principally defined by Machiavelli, Hobbes and Rousseau, seeks to domesticate religion by putting it solidly in the service of politics. The liberal tradition pursues an alternative strategy of domestication by seeking to put as much distance as possible between religion and politics. Modern theocracy is a militant reaction against liberalism, reversing the relationship of subordination asserted by civil religion. Finally, a fourth tradition is defined by Nietzsche and Heidegger. Aspects of their thought are not just modern, but hyper-modern, yet they manifest an often-hysterical reaction against liberalism that is fundamentally shared with the theocratic tradition. Together, these four traditions compose a vital dialogue that carries us to the heart of political philosophy itself.

Author : Steven Frankel,Martin D. Yaffe
Publisher : Penn State Press
Page : 253 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2020-07-15
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780271087450

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Civil Religion in Modern Political Philosophy by Steven Frankel,Martin D. Yaffe Pdf

Inspired by Machiavelli, modern philosophers held that the tension between the goals of biblical piety and the goals of political life needed to be resolved in favor of the political, and they attempted to recast and delimit traditional Christian teaching to serve and stabilize political life accordingly. This volume examines the arguments of those thinkers who worked to remake Christianity into a civil religion in the early modern and modern periods. Beginning with Machiavelli and continuing through to Alexis de Tocqueville, the essays in this collection explain in detail the ways in which these philosophers used religious and secular writing to build a civil religion in the West. Early chapters examine topics such as Machiavelli’s comparisons of Christianity with Roman religion, Francis Bacon’s cherry-picking of Christian doctrines in the service of scientific innovation, and Spinoza’s attempt to replace long-held superstitions with newer, “progressive” ones. Other essays probe the scripture-based, anti-Christian argument that religion must be subordinate to politics espoused by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and David Hume, both of whom championed reason over divine authority. Crucially, the book also includes a study of civil religion in America, with chapters on John Locke, Montesquieu, and the American Founders illuminating the relationships among religious and civil history, acts, and authority. The last chapter is an examination of Tocqueville’s account of civil religion and the American regime. Detailed, thought-provoking, and based on the careful study of original texts, this survey of religion and politics in the West will appeal to scholars in the history of political philosophy, political theory, and American political thought.

Author : Camil Ungureanu,Paolo Monti
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 350 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2017-12-12
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781351391740

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Contemporary Political Philosophy and Religion by Camil Ungureanu,Paolo Monti Pdf

What is the place of religion in a pluralist democracy? The continuous presence of religion in the public sphere has raised anew normative and practical issues related to the role of religion in a democratic polity, generating spirited political debates in Western and non-Western contexts. Contemporary Political Philosophy and Religion provides an advanced introduction to, and a critical appraisal of, the major schools of political thought with a focus on the relationship between democracy and religion. Key features of this book include: Analyses of different political traditions: liberalism, republicanism, deliberative democracy, feminism, postmodernism, multiculturalism, and interculturalism; Critical discussions of key contemporary philosophers, such as John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas, Richard Rorty, Charles Taylor, Susan Moller Okin, Martha Nussbaum, Will Kymlicka, Chandran Kukathas, and Bhiku Parekh; A pluralist approach that questions the strict divide between analytical and continental political philosophy; Discussion on the place of religion in politics from multiple perspectives by drawing on a plurality of political contexts, both Western and non-Western; Analyses of legal and political cases related to different religious traditions, for example, Islam, Confucianism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Hinduism. This comprehensive text will be of great use to students of religion and politics in the fields of political and legal theory, and religious and theological studies, while also offering critical insights and arguments that will be of interest to the experts in the field.

Author : Ronald L. Weed,John von Heyking
Publisher : CUA Press
Page : 375 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2010-03
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780813217246

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Civil Religion in Political Thought by Ronald L. Weed,John von Heyking Pdf

The essays in this volume blend historical and philosophical reflection with concern for contemporary political problems. They show that the causes and motivations of civil religion are a permanent fixture of the human condition, though some of its manifestations and proximate causes have shifted in an age of multiculturalism, religious toleration, and secularization

Author : Professor of Political Science Ronald Beiner
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 450 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2014-05-14
Category : Political science
ISBN : 0511909640

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Civil Religion by Professor of Political Science Ronald Beiner Pdf

Civil Religion traces a continuing intellectual dialogue on the challenge posed to political and civic life by religion.

Author : Douglas Kries
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 316 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 1997
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0847686191

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Piety and Humanity by Douglas Kries Pdf

The nature of the relationship between early modern political philosophy and revealed religion has been much debated. The contributors to Piety and Humanity argue that this relationship is one of dissonance rather than concord. They claim that the early modern political philosophers found revealed religion--especially Christianity--to be a threat to the modern political project, and that these philosophers therefore attempted to transform revealed religion so that it would be less of a threat, and possibly even an aid. Each essay is devoted to a particular work by a single political philosopher; the thinkers and works discussed include Machiavelli's Exhortation to Penitence, Francis Bacon's New Atlantis, Spinoza's Theologico-Political Treatise, and Locke's Reasonableness of Christianity. Each essay is followed by a brief selected bibliography. This book will be of great importance to philosophers, political theorists, and scholars of religion and early modern European history.

Author : Laurens van Apeldoorn,Robin Douglass
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 336 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2018-06-21
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780192525093

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Hobbes on Politics and Religion by Laurens van Apeldoorn,Robin Douglass Pdf

Thomas Hobbes, one of the most important figures in the history of political philosophy, is still widely regarded as a predominantly secular thinker. Yet a great deal of his political thought was motivated by the need to address problems of a distinctively religious nature. This is the first collection of essays dedicated to the complex and rich intersections between Hobbes's political and religious thought. Written by experts in the field, the volume opens up new directions for thinking about his treatment of religion as a political phenomenon and the political dimensions of his engagement with Christian doctrines and their history. The chapters investigate his strategies for showing how his provocative political positions could be accepted by different religious audiences for whom fidelity to religious texts was of crucial importance, while also considering the legacy of his ideas and examining their relevance for contemporary concerns. Some chapters do so by pursuing mainly historical inquiries about the motives and circumstances of Hobbes's writings, while others reconstruct the logic of his arguments and test their philosophical coherence. They thus offer wide-ranging and sometimes conflicting assessments of Hobbes's ideas, yet they all demonstrate how closely intertwined his political and religious preoccupations are and thereby showcase how this perspective can help us to better understand his thought.

Author : Nigel C. Hunt
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 232 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2010
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 051184705X

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Memory, War, and Trauma by Nigel C. Hunt Pdf

Civil Religion offers philosophical commentaries on more than twenty thinkers stretching from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. It examines four important traditions within the history of modern political philosophy. The civil religion tradition, principally defined by Machiavelli, Hobbes and Rousseau, seeks to domesticate religion by putting it solidly in the service of politics. The liberal tradition pursues an alternative strategy of domestication by seeking to put as much distance as possible between religion and politics. Modern theocracy is a militant reaction against liberalism, reversing the relationship of subordination asserted by civil religion. Finally, a fourth tradition is defined by Nietzsche and Heidegger. Aspects of their thought are not just modern, but hyper-modern, yet they manifest an often-hysterical reaction against liberalism that is fundamentally shared with the theocratic tradition. Together, these four traditions compose a vital dialogue that carries us to the heart of political philosophy itself.

Author : Piers Norris Turner,Gerald Gaus
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 404 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2017-08-10
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781351617321

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Public Reason in Political Philosophy by Piers Norris Turner,Gerald Gaus Pdf

When people of good faith and sound mind disagree deeply about moral, religious, and other philosophical matters, how can we justify political institutions to all of them? The idea of public reason—of a shared public standard, despite disagreement—arose in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the work of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant. At a time when John Rawls’ influential theory of public reason has come under fire but its core idea remains attractive to many, it is important not to lose sight of earlier philosophers’ answers to the problem of private conflict through public reason. The distinctive selections from the great social contract theorists in this volume emphasize the pervasive theme of intractable disagreement and the need for public justification. New essays by leading scholars then put the historical work in context and provide a focus of debate and discussion. They also explore how the search for public reason has informed a wider body of modern political theory—in the work of Hume, Hegel, Bentham, and Mill—sometimes in surprising ways. The idea of public reason is revealed as an overarching theme in modern political philosophy—one very much needed today.

Author : Joshua Mitchell
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 268 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 1996-10
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0226532224

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Not by Reason Alone by Joshua Mitchell Pdf

Masterfully interweaving political, religious, and historical themes, Not by Reason Alone creates a new interpretation of early modern political thought. Where most accounts assume that modern thought followed a decisive break with Christianity, Joshua Mitchell reveals that the line between the age of faith and that of reason is not quite so clear. Instead, he shows that the ideas of Luther, Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau draw on history, rather than reason alone, for a sense of political authority. This erudite and ambitious work crosses disciplinary boundaries to expose unsuspected connections between political theory, religion, and history. In doing so, it offers a view of modern political thought undistorted by conventional distinctions between the ancient and the modern, and between the religious and the political. "Original. . . . A delight to read a political philosopher who takes the theologies of Hobbes and Locke seriously." —J. M. Porter, Canadian Journal of History "Mitchell's argument both illuminates and fascinates. . . . An arresting, even stunning, contribution to our study of modern political thought."—William R. Stevenson, Jr., Christian Scholar's Review

Author : Anthony Squiers
Publisher : Springer
Page : 181 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2017-12-21
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9783319688701

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The Politics of the Sacred in America by Anthony Squiers Pdf

This book provides a comprehensive investigation of the political dimensions of civil religion in the United States. By employing an original social-psychological theory rooted in semiotics, it offers a qualitative and quantitative empirical examination of more than fifty years of political rhetoric. Further, it presents two in-depth case studies that examine how the cultural, totemic sign of ‘the Founding Fathers’ and the signs of America’s sacred texts (the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence) are used in attempts to link partisan policy positions with notions that the country collectively holds sacred. The book’s overarching thesis is that America’s civil religion serves as a discursive framework for the country’s politics of the sacred, mediating the demands of particularistic interests and social solidarity through the interaction of social belief and institutional politics like elections and the Supreme Court. The book penetrates America’s unique political religiosity to reveal and unravel the intricate ways in which politics, political institutions, religion and culture intertwine in the United States.

Author : Steven Frankel,Martin D. Yaffe
Publisher : Penn State Press
Page : 126 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 2020-07-15
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780271087436

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Civil Religion in Modern Political Philosophy by Steven Frankel,Martin D. Yaffe Pdf

Inspired by Machiavelli, modern philosophers held that the tension between the goals of biblical piety and the goals of political life needed to be resolved in favor of the political, and they attempted to recast and delimit traditional Christian teaching to serve and stabilize political life accordingly. This volume examines the arguments of those thinkers who worked to remake Christianity into a civil religion in the early modern and modern periods. Beginning with Machiavelli and continuing through to Alexis de Tocqueville, the essays in this collection explain in detail the ways in which these philosophers used religious and secular writing to build a civil religion in the West. Early chapters examine topics such as Machiavelli’s comparisons of Christianity with Roman religion, Francis Bacon’s cherry-picking of Christian doctrines in the service of scientific innovation, and Spinoza’s attempt to replace long-held superstitions with newer, “progressive” ones. Other essays probe the scripture-based, anti-Christian argument that religion must be subordinate to politics espoused by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and David Hume, both of whom championed reason over divine authority. Crucially, the book also includes a study of civil religion in America, with chapters on John Locke, Montesquieu, and the American Founders illuminating the relationships among religious and civil history, acts, and authority. The last chapter is an examination of Tocqueville’s account of civil religion and the American regime. Detailed, thought-provoking, and based on the careful study of original texts, this survey of religion and politics in the West will appeal to scholars in the history of political philosophy, political theory, and American political thought.

Author : Thomas Westneat Merrill
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 654 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2003
Category : Civil religion
ISBN : OCLC:54036755

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Civil Religion and Civil Society in Hume's Political Philosophy by Thomas Westneat Merrill Pdf

Author : Marcela Cristi
Publisher : Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
Page : 300 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2001-08-23
Category : History
ISBN : 9780889203686

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From Civil to Political Religion by Marcela Cristi Pdf

The coercive potential of civil religion has received little attention from theorists, or has been wrongly relegated to developing nations. Cristi (sociology, U. of Waterloo) critiques the literature of the civil religion thesis, in particular the thinking of Rousseau, Durkheim, and the American sociologist Robert Bellah, and argues for a reinterpretation of Rousseau and Durkheim's classical approaches. She backs up the critique with a comparative survey of state-directed civil religions and a case study of civil religion in Pinochet's Chile. c. Book News Inc.

Author : Sanford Kessler
Publisher : State University of New York Press
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 1994-07-01
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781438408866

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Tocqueville's Civil Religion by Sanford Kessler Pdf

Sanford Kessler offers a provocative and timely analysis of Alexis de Tocqueville's views on the relationship between Christianity and American democracy. These views are central to Tocqueville's discussions of the moral requirements of freedom and the tasks of democratic statesmanship. Tocqueville's thinking about American religion is highly relevant to contemporary debates regarding America's origins, the current strength of American Christianity, and the proper role of religion in American public life. Kessler skillfully demonstrates how Tocqueville incorporates his ideas into an analysis of the American character, a factor in American politics that he considered more important than the Constitution. This book will challenge the thinking of all Americans concerned with religious-political issues and with the prospects for freedom.