Essays on Habermas and the Post-Secular Society

Discoursing the Post-Secular
Essays on the Habermasian Post-Secular Turn

edited by Péter Losonczi & Aakash Singh

(Lit Verlag, 2010)

184 pages



Description

This collection of essays analyzes the Habermasian post-secular turn as it has been evolving over the last decade triggering intensive debates in social and political theory, but at the same time aims to situate the arising postsecular discourse(s) within the larger intellectual environment shaped by the complex influence of the alleged "return" of religion or the religious. The volume includes studies from as diverse fields as cultural theory, social theory, political philosophy, and theory of religion, as well as theology and bioethics. Key issues such as tolerance, the nature and challenges of modernity, pluralism, knowledge and faith, human dignity, ritual, idolatry or transcendence are brought into the discussion in an inventive way, and Habermas's work is reflected upon in comparison with figures like Levinas, Vattimo, and Agnes Heller.

Contents

Editors’ Introduction

1. "Multiple Modernities, Sacredness, and the Democratic Imaginary: Religion as a Stand-in Category" - John Rundell

2. "The Relevance and the Limits of the Notion of a Post-Secular Age In Jurgen Habermas’s Theory of Toleration" - Devrim Kabasakal

3. "Beyond secularization? Notes on Habermas’s Account of the Postsecular Society" - Patrick Loobuyck & Stefan Rummens

4. "Habermas' Postsecularism: The Penetration/Preservation of the (European) Political Public Sphere" - Aakash Singh

5. "Habermas, Levinas and the Problem of the Sacred: Postsecular Strategies in Resonating Divergence" - Péter Losonczi

6. "The Permanence of the Eschatological: Reflections on Gianni Vattimo’s Hermeneutic Age" - Matthias Riedl

7. "Habermas on Religion: The Problem of Discursive Extraterritoriality" - Nicholas Adams

8. "What is Religion, and What is Religion For? Thoughts in Light of Communicative Theory and Communicative Theology" [paper, pdf] - Edmund Arens

9. "Towards a Thicker Description of Transcendence" - Michael Hoelz

10. "Human Dignity and Genetics in a Postsecular Age: Habermas’s Ideas Concerning Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis and Enhancement in the Context of Theological Tradition" - Gábor Viktor Orosz

Péter Losonczi is Associate Professor at the Institute for Intercultural Studies at the University of West Hungary, Hungary. Aakash Singh is Research Professor at the Centre for Ethics and Global Politics at LUISS University, Rome, Italy.

See also: Péter Losonczi & Aakash Singh (eds.) - "From Political Theory to Political Theology. Religious Challenges and the Prospects of Democracy" (Continuum Books, 2010).