Contemporary Political Philosophy and Religion PDF Download

Author: Camil Ungureanu
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780415552189
Category : Democracy
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Should democratic politics and religion, political reason and faith be completely separated from each other, or should they be seen in a relationship of discursive interaction? The continuous presence of religion in the public sphere has undermined state-induced attempts to privatise faith, and it has raised anew normative and practical issues related to the place of religion in a democratic polity, generating spirited political debates. This textbook: Provides an introduction to, and a critical appraisal of the major schools of political thought with a focus on the relationship between democracy and religion. Contains an analysis of different schools: political liberalism, postmodernism, and Christian thought, analytical and continental political theory. Discusses religion from the perspective of the emerging field of international political theory. Features reflections on the question of Islam and Islamism. Include an analysis and appraisal of the issue of religion in contemporary republican thinking. Deals with the relationship between democracy and religion from the perspective of two opposing theologians, representing important theological trends. Teases out the political implications of post-modern thought in a jargon-free manner. This important text will be of great to use to students of religion and politics in the fields of political and legal theory, and religious and theological studies.

Author: Steven Frankel
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271087439
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 126

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Book Description
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: Ronald Beiner
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139492616
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 449

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Book Description
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: Tom Bailey
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231538391
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
John Rawls's influential theory of justice and public reason has often been thought to exclude religion from politics, out of fear of its illiberal and destabilizing potentials. It has therefore been criticized by defenders of religion for marginalizing and alienating the wealth of religious sensibilities, voices, and demands now present in contemporary liberal societies. In this anthology, established scholars of Rawls and the philosophy of religion reexamine and rearticulate the central tenets of Rawls's theory to show they in fact offer sophisticated resources for accommodating and responding to religions in liberal political life. The chapters reassert the subtlety, openness, and flexibility of his sense of liberal "respect" and "consensus," revealing their inclusive implications for religious citizens. They also explore the means he proposes for accommodating nonliberal religions in liberal politics, developing his conception of "public reason" into a novel account of the possibilities for rational engagement between liberal and religious ideas. And they reevaluate Rawls's liberalism from the "transcendent" perspectives of religions themselves, critically considering its normative and political value, as well as its own "religious" character. Rawls and Religion makes a unique and important contribution to contemporary debates over liberalism and its response to the proliferation of religions in contemporary political life.

Author: Heinrich Meier
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022627585X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
Meier's guiding insight here is that philosophy must prove its right and its necessity in the face of the claim to truth and demand obedience of itsmost powerful opponent, revealed religion.

Author: Devin Stauffer
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022655306X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
Was Hobbes the first great architect of modern political philosophy? Highly critical of the classical tradition in philosophy, particularly Aristotle, Hobbes thought that he had established a new science of morality and politics. Devin Stauffer here delves into Hobbes’s critique of the classical tradition, making this oft-neglected aspect of the philosopher’s thought the basis of a new, comprehensive interpretation of his political philosophy. In Hobbes’s Kingdom of Light, Stauffer argues that Hobbes was engaged in a struggle on multiple fronts against forces, both philosophic and religious, that he thought had long distorted philosophy and destroyed the prospects of a lasting peace in politics. By exploring the twists and turns of Hobbes’s arguments, not only in his famous Leviathan but throughout his corpus, Stauffer uncovers the details of Hobbes’s critique of an older outlook, rooted in classical philosophy and Christian theology, and reveals the complexity of Hobbes’s war against the “Kingdom of Darkness.” He also describes the key features of the new outlook—the “Kingdom of Light”—that Hobbes sought to put in its place. Hobbes’s venture helped to prepare the way for the later emergence of modern liberalism and modern secularism. Hobbes’s Kingdom of Light is a wide-ranging and ambitious exploration of Hobbes’s thought.

Author: Ronald L. Weed
Publisher: CUA Press
ISBN: 0813217245
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 375

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Book Description
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: Camil Ungureanu
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351391747
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 728

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Book Description
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: Carson Holloway
Publisher: Northern Illinois University Press
ISBN: 1501751298
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
While the dominant approaches to the current study of political philosophy are various, with some friendlier to religious belief than others, almost all place constraints on the philosophic and political role of revelation. Mainstream secular political theorists do not entirely disregard religion. But to the extent that they pay attention, their treatment of religious belief is seen more as a political or philosophic problem to be addressed rather than as a positive body of thought from which we might derive important insights about the nature of politics and the truth of the human condition. In a one-of-a-kind collection, DeHart and Holloway bring together leading scholars from various fields, including political science, philosophy, and theology, to challenge the prevailing orthodoxy and to demonstrate the role that religion can and does play in political life. Contributing authors include such important thinkers as Peter Augustine Lawler, Robert C. Koons, J. Budziszewski, Francis J. Beckwith, and James Stoner.

Author: David Estlund
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195376692
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 457

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Book Description
This volume includes 22 new pieces by leading political philosophers, on traditional issues (such as authority and equality) and emerging issues (such as race, and money in politics). The pieces are clear and accessible will interest both students and scholars working in philosophy, political science, law, economics, and more.