Thursday, July 06, 2017

Habermas on Religion and Democracy

The recent issue of the journal "The European Legacy" (vol. 25 issue 5) features articles on Habermas's view on religion and democracy:

Introduction: Habermas on Religion and Democracy - Critical Perspectives
by Camil Ungureanu & Paolo Monti

Habermas’s Theological Turn and European Integration (Abstract)
by Peter J. Verovšek

Habermas and Taylor on Religious Reasoning in a Liberal Democracy (Abstract)
by Andrew Tsz Wan Hung

Religion in Habermas’s Two-Track Political Theory (Abstract)
by Adil Usturali

Found in Translation: Habermas and Anthropotechnics (Abstract)
by Matteo Bortolini


From the introduction:

"The prospects of a fully-fledged postsecular society appear to be utopian in view of the current rise of populism and religious majoritarianism: social conflicts, stark inequalities, fundamentalist estrangement and resentment—all these endanger and marginalize the potentially fruitful communication between believers and non-believers. We argue, however, that precisely because of these trends, Habermas’s cosmopolitan vision of democracy and religion, notwithstanding its philosophical and sociological difficulties, stands out as an exemplary lifelong defense of inclusive communicative interactions and forms of resistance. The inner tensions of Habermas’s theoretical outlook—rationalism vs historicity, universalism vs particular world-views, state neutrality vs religion’s indirect impact, and sociological vs normative analysis—are inherent to democratic theory and practice and thus remain instructive for understanding the multilayered interrelationships of religion and democracy from comparative and global perspectives."

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