Hegel as a Theorist of Secularization

2013 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-244
Author(s):  
Espen Hammer
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Adequate Account ◽  
Religious Development ◽  
End Point ◽  
Religious Thinking ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
The One

Hegel's philosophy of religion is characterized by what seems to be a deep tension. On the one hand, Hegel claims to be a Christian thinker, viewing religion, and in particular Christianity, as a manifestation of the absolute. On the other hand, however, he seems to view modernity as largely secular, devoid of authoritative claims to transcendence. Modernity is secular in the political sense of requiring the state to be neutral when it comes to matters of religion. However, it is also secular in the sense of there being no recourse to authoritative representations of a transcendent God. Drawing on Charles Taylor's view of secularization, the article focuses on the second strand of his religious thinking, exploring how Hegel can be thought of as a theorist of secularization. It is claimed that his dialectic of religious development describes a process of secularization. Ultimately, Hegel's system offers a view of the absolute as immanent, suggesting that an adequate account of religion will necessarily have to accept secularization as the end-point of spirit's development. This is how the tension between religion and secularization can be resolved.

Critical legal studies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emilios Christodoulidis ◽  
Johan van der Walt
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
Social Production ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
Critical Legal Theory ◽  
The One

This chapter traces the tradition of critical theory in Europe in the way it has informed and framed legal thought. A key, and distinctive, element of this legal tradition is that it characteristically connects to the state as constitutive reference; in other words it understands the institution of law as that which organizes and mediates the relation of the state to civil society. The other constitutive reference is political economy, a reference that typically grounds this tradition of thinking about the law in the materiality of the practices of social production and reproduction. It is in these connections, of the institution of law to the domains of the state and of the political economy, that critical legal theory locates the function of law, and the emancipatory potentially it affords on the one hand, and the obstacles to emancipation it imposes, on the other.

Leibowitz, Yeshayahu (1903–94)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Hartman
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Israeli Society ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Thought ◽  
Political Reality ◽  
Religious Law ◽  
The One ◽  
State Of Israel

Unlike the major intellectual currents that shaped religious thought in the modern world, Leibowitz’s thought is deeply anchored in the Israeli context. Both as philosopher and activist, Leibowitz lived and articulated the paradoxes of modern Israel where he lived and was best known. His reputation as a Socratic gadfly to the establishment reflected his ongoing critique of both Israeli society in the light of Judaism, and Judaism in the light of the revolutionary implications of the creation of the State of Israel. On the one hand, he was a Jewish patriot, a fighter for Jewish independence from all forms of foreign rule; on the other hand, he was a harsh, relentless critic of national and political expressions of chauvinism in the Israeli establishment. A strictly observant Jew, Leibowitz had less impact on traditional religious Jews than on secular Israelis. His central message is that what makes Jews distinctive as a group is neither their theology nor their Bible, but the system of law with which they regulate their lives. Judaism is a communal concept, and there is no point in religious Jews ignoring the State of Israel, or expecting others to bear their civil burdens for them. Religious law has to be reconciled with life in the political reality of the state, and this necessitates changing those attitudes to the law which reflect the historical conditions of life in exile.

Representation and participation in the changing world of party politics

1998 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Mair
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Processes Of Change ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Mass Politics ◽  
The Future ◽  
The One

The 20th-century has been the century of mass politics, and the mass parties that emerged at the beginning of this century became deeply rooted within wider society. The passing of this golden age of the party has now been marked by two distinct processes of change. On the one hand, parties have become more distant from society and more closely linked to government and the state. On the other hand, there has been a decline in the political identities of the parties, such that voters now find it increasingly difficult to distinguish between them. These changes, and the related transformation of politics into administration, have led to a growth in popular indifference to parties and to politics in general, as well as to a declining sense of engagement. Should this trend continue, it is mass spectacle rather than mass involvement that is likely to characterize the future of mass politics.

scholarly journals Den filosofiske politiker – Frederik den Store og statsræsonen

2018 ◽  
pp. 55-70
Author(s):  
Mathias Hein Jessen
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Political Reality ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Reason Of State ◽  
The One ◽  
Political Thinker

Frederick the Great (ruled 1740-86) is one of the main figures of Enlightened Absolutism. Frederic was on the one hand an enlightened philosopher deeply inspired by the ideals of the Enlightenment. On the other hand he ruled one of the most autocratic states in history and commanded the strongest and most disciplined military force of his time. Despite his many writings, however, Frederick is rarely investigated as a political thinker. The article focuses on the political writings of Frederick the Great and more specifically on his use of the concept of reason of state to legitimize his rule, not least with regard to his enlightened ideals. In this struggle for legitimacy, Frederick abolishes the concept of a personal ruler, and in doing so becomes a fascinating figure in the transition from a personalized government to the abstract, depersonalized concept of the state that still dominates our political reality today.

Paul Ricœur et le destin de la phénoménologie

1970 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-160
Author(s):  
Jérôme de Gramont
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Paul Ricoeur ◽  
The Other ◽  
Promised Land ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Paul Ricœur ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Historical Phenomenology ◽  
The One

Every reader of Ricœur knows that hermeneutics endeavors to answer the aporiae of historical phenomenology. Hence arises the need to return to those aporiae and those answers. On the one hand, phenomenology, born with the maxim of going “directly to things themselves,” is confronted with the incessant evasion of the thing itself and with its dreams of presence being thereby shattered. This reversal should not be blamed on the failings of this or that thinker, but attributed to the very destiny of phenomenology itself. On the other hand, Ricœurian hermeneutics takes note of a gap (the very remoteness of the thing itself), and of a necessary return (to the thing of the text). Thus, there is nothing for thought itself to grieve over with respect to this enterprise. However, while the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty, faced with the same difficulties, orients itself towards political philosophy, the hermeneutics of Ricœur rather seeks to lead us to a philosophy of religion. This article hypothesizes that, in spite of the formula (inherited from Thévenaz) of a “philosophy without an absolute,” the thought of Ricœur heads in fair measure towards the Absolute, and that ontology is not the only name of the Promised Land.

Whose Mistake? The Errors of Friendship in Cicero, La Boétie, and Montaigne

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Bizer
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Wars Of Religion ◽  
Political Extremism ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
French Wars Of Religion ◽  
It Support ◽  
The One

Focusing on Montaigne’s adaptation of Cicero’s De amicitia within his own essay “On Friendship,” this chapter reveals Montaigne’s complex reception of the “Roman error” of putting friendship before the needs of the state. Drawn to such matters in part by his friendship with Étienne de La Boétie, Montaigne, in effect, disagrees with Cicero over how to react to this error. Cicero (through his Laelius) opts to condemn it, while Montaigne finds in it support for his view of friendship, one that in turn sustains Montaigne’s moderation amid the political extremism of the French Wars of Religion. Montaigne’s rejection of Roman friendship as error on the one hand reflects his questioning of the value of ancient models for understanding the present. On the other hand, however, his characterization of ideal friendship as autotelic and autonomous can also be seen as a tacit acknowledgment that friendship among the elite is inherently political.

Cura Religionis or Two Kingdoms: The Late Luther on Religion and the State in the Lectures on Genesis

2004 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Whitford
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Long Line ◽  
Major Shortcoming ◽  
The One ◽  
Two Kingdoms ◽  
Civil Order ◽  
Opening Up

In 1996, Bernhard Lohse wondered if the Luther presented by some would recognize the Luther described by others. Trying to recognize the “political” Luther would be especially difficult. On the one hand, Thomas Müntzer was but the first in a long line of polemicists, journalists, politicians, and scholars who have accused Luther of releasing the sword of secular authority from all control and thereby opening up centuries of authoritarian subjugation. On the other hand, Peter Frarin argued in 1566 that Protestantism equaled sedition, rebellion, and the subversion of civil order. In the criticism of Luther for being either too conservative or too liberal, one thing remained fairly constant: the source of Luther's major shortcoming—his theology of the Two Kingdoms.

scholarly journals Resisting Borders: Transnational Cartographies in US Latinx Studies

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Macarena García-Avello
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Alicia Gaspar De Alba ◽  
Economic Reality ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The One

This article examines the evolution of the borderlands as an organizing trope by focusing on how the transcendence beyond cultural nationalist perspectives traces the shift from Chicano/a to Latinx discourses. In order to address this issue, I will analyse two twenty-first-century Latinx texts that delve into the intricate ways in which transnational forces collide with economic, cultural and political processes that persistently revolve around the framework of the nation-state: Alicia Gaspar de Alba´s Desert Blood: The Juarez Murders (2005) and Maya Chinchilla´s The Cha Cha Files: A Chapina Poética (2014). The corpus of works selected will focus on the political readings derived from textual negotiation with a changing political, social and economic reality. This results in constant tensions between globalising processes, worldwide interconnectedness and transnational interactions, on the one hand, and the regulatory power of the state, on the other.

scholarly journals El transfondo teórico-ideológico de la «libertad civil» y su eficacia

2007 ◽  
pp. 175
Author(s):  
Javier Ruipérez Alamilo
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Classical Greece ◽  
Constitutional State ◽  
The One

The preoccupation about the conciliation between Freedom and Democracy has always been present in the political thought along History. Is for this reason why this antinomy is been tried to be solved from several approaches from classical Greece to our days. It was the rise of the liberal Constitutional State which made real both premises but from an approach in which both concepts act like characteristic of two very different frames: the one of the civil society and the one of the State, so that Freedom that acts in the first one, conditions absolutely to the second. But certainly Freedom and Democracy are, in essence, complementary and inseparable terms, because none of them can be understood without the other, and their independent fulfilment would be impossible at all.

The Problem of Sovereignty

1923 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 404-414 ◽  
Author(s):  
Baron S. A. Korff
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
General Idea ◽  
The Political ◽  
Modern Theory ◽  
Theoretical Problem ◽  
Equal Importance ◽  
The One ◽  
Political Question

One of the most difficult problems of modern political science is that of sovereignty. The commonly accepted theory contains many elements that seem to be in obvious contradiction to our ideals of democracy; some of them do not fit into the present-day conception of state and government, while others are plain remnants of feudalism and autocracy. One should keep in mind, however, that it is not only a purely theoretical problem closely associated with the general idea of the state, but that it is also an eminently practical one, as it necessarily involves the political question of limitations on the state's powers. Those limitations are of equal importance internally, in the relations between state and citizen, and externally, in the domain of international law.As often happens in cases where political questions are involved, the theory of sovereignty has two extreme wings of proponents. On the one hand there are theorists who defend an all-powerful state and make of the idea of sovereignty the emblem and symbol of the all-powerful state authority. On the other hand, there have appeared recently many writers, who believe that dangers lurk in the views of the first-mentioned school and who are loath to admit that any power, state or personal, may be unlimited; they distrust the theory of sovereignty, because of its association with unlimited power; consequently, they deny the existence of sovereignty altogether, asserting that it has no place whatever in the modern theory of the state.

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