Gray Mass: a Critical Engagement with John Gray's Political Philosophy and the Role of Christian Eschatology

<p>Contemporary political philosopher John Gray has recently asserted: “modern politics is a chapter in the history of religion.” Gray demonstrates how the roots of modern political violence can be traced back to Christianity. Furthermore, he sees Utopianism, “the Enlightenment project”, anthropocentrism and any notion of human meaning as all originating in the Christian notion of “salvation”. Gray argues that all of these ideas are disproven by values pluralism – the idea that human life consists of an incommensurable range of values. Gray is also critical of human beings technological appropriation of the world and the ecological crisis that this consciousness has precipitated. Gray claims that all forms of universalism are mistaken because they privilege a particular set of values at the expense of others. Gray offers a modus vivendi as a political construct that can appropriate the insights of values pluralism, without privileging any particular set of values. Despite considering Christianity (and its offspring) illusory, Gray asserts that the “myth of human meaning” is a “necessary illusion”; it is one that human beings cannot live without. Gray’s argument, however, is beset with inconsistencies, including an implicit teleology, despite his explicit rejection of all teleology, and the tendency of his thought toward nihilism, undermining his proposal of a modus vivendi. In his own constructive proposal Gray inadvertently privileges values of peaceful coexistence and human flourishing. His own political vision has some similarities with the Christian vision of the ideal human life. Christian eschatology is examined through the work of Jürgen Moltmann, and the values of hope and love are highlighted as the ethical consequence of Christian eschatology, as opposed to the violence that Gray claims has been generated from it. Moltmann’s thought also reveals the resources present in a theological perspective that are able to resolve some of the contradictions between individuality and sociality and between human beings and nature. This has significant implications for the ecological crisis, which is also one of Gray’s central concerns. Finally, Martin Heidegger’s concept of Gelassenheit is examined as a point of common ground between Gray’s thought and a theological approach to the world of politics and nature.</p>

Gray Mass: a Critical Engagement with John Gray's Political Philosophy and the Role of Christian Eschatology

<p>Contemporary political philosopher John Gray has recently asserted: “modern politics is a chapter in the history of religion.” Gray demonstrates how the roots of modern political violence can be traced back to Christianity. Furthermore, he sees Utopianism, “the Enlightenment project”, anthropocentrism and any notion of human meaning as all originating in the Christian notion of “salvation”. Gray argues that all of these ideas are disproven by values pluralism – the idea that human life consists of an incommensurable range of values. Gray is also critical of human beings technological appropriation of the world and the ecological crisis that this consciousness has precipitated. Gray claims that all forms of universalism are mistaken because they privilege a particular set of values at the expense of others. Gray offers a modus vivendi as a political construct that can appropriate the insights of values pluralism, without privileging any particular set of values. Despite considering Christianity (and its offspring) illusory, Gray asserts that the “myth of human meaning” is a “necessary illusion”; it is one that human beings cannot live without. Gray’s argument, however, is beset with inconsistencies, including an implicit teleology, despite his explicit rejection of all teleology, and the tendency of his thought toward nihilism, undermining his proposal of a modus vivendi. In his own constructive proposal Gray inadvertently privileges values of peaceful coexistence and human flourishing. His own political vision has some similarities with the Christian vision of the ideal human life. Christian eschatology is examined through the work of Jürgen Moltmann, and the values of hope and love are highlighted as the ethical consequence of Christian eschatology, as opposed to the violence that Gray claims has been generated from it. Moltmann’s thought also reveals the resources present in a theological perspective that are able to resolve some of the contradictions between individuality and sociality and between human beings and nature. This has significant implications for the ecological crisis, which is also one of Gray’s central concerns. Finally, Martin Heidegger’s concept of Gelassenheit is examined as a point of common ground between Gray’s thought and a theological approach to the world of politics and nature.</p>

Learning in the Anthropocene

While the precautionary principle may have offered a sound basis for managing environmental risk in the Holocene, the depth and width of the Anthropocene have made precaution increasingly untenable. Not only have many ecosystems already been damaged beyond natural recovery, achieving a sustainable long-term global trajectory now seem to require ever greater measures of proactionary risk-taking, in particular in relation to the growing need for climate engineering. At the same time, different optical illusions, arising from temporary emissions reductions due to the COVID-19 epidemic and the local deployment of seemingly “green” small-scale renewable energy sources, tend to obscure worsening global trends and reinforce political disinterest in developing high-energy technologies that would be more compatible with universal human development and worldwide ecological restoration. Yet, given the lack of feedback between the global and the local level, not to mention the role of culture and values in shaping perceptions of “sustainability”, the necessary learning may end up being both epistemologically and politically difficult. This paper explores the problem of finding indicators suitable for measuring progress towards meaningful climate action and the restoration of an ecologically vibrant planet. It is suggested that such indicators are essentially political as they reflect, not only different assessments of technological feasibility, but orientations towards the Enlightenment project.

Do We Need a Metaphysics of Morals?

This paper argues that Kant’s project of a metaphysics of morals represents a normative ideal grounded on the core ideas of Enlightenment. In the first section, it analyzes Kant’s concept of metaphysical principles of morals by establishing a connection between a metaphysics of morals and Kant’s concept of metaphysics in general and of metaphysics of nature in particular. It then discusses what is metaphysical in the Doctrine of Right and the Doctrine of Virtue. In its last section, it tackles the question of whether a non-metaphysical reading of Kant’s doctrines of right and of virtue is desirable if we want to remain faithful to Kant’s Enlightenment project.

DEATH IN THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF J. DERRIDA: TERRORISM, SECRECY, DEATH PENALTY AND THE CRISIS OF THE MODERN NATIONAL STATE

The article outlines the main crisis points and trends in the development of the modern nation-state. Special attention is paid to the consideration of the phenomenon of terrorism as an inevitable product of the Enlightenment project. The coronavirus pandemic has made the problem points more relevant, calling into question not only the essence of democracies, but also the irreversibility of the processes of globalization. The author suggests following the logic of the argumentation of the French philosopher J. Derrida, who preferred to deconstruct the power discourse in order to find an answer to the question: how and to what extent is it possible to combat violence and terror, the products of modern Western civilization. The article consistently examines the prerequisites for understanding death not only as a secret rooted in antiquity and associated with the classical paradigm of philosophizing, phenomenology, Heideggerianism and existentialism, but also as an economy of mourning for the dead, which is close to psychologism and Freudianism. The focus is concentrated on the study of the mechanisms of the sovereign state that help it to claim comprehensive possession of the moment of death for a person sentenced to death. Capital punishment - an instrument of control on the part of sovereignty - is interpreted as the core of the theological and political tradition that determines the orthogenesis of any nation-state. Finally, the author considers the concept of the “heart of the other” as a starting point for the fight against abuse and for debunking phantasms and illusions that are an integral feature of the modern political organism. It is the deconstruction of the death penalty that is the key subject touched upon by the author of the article.

Kant’s Religion as a Response to the Pantheism Controversy

This paper places Kant’s Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason within the historical context of the pantheism controversy between Mendelssohn and Jacobi. I argue that reading Religion with this context in mind shines new light upon passages connected with the need for a moral archetype and prototype in the form of Christ, as well as various comments upon the relation between Christianity and Judaism. Within this new viewpoint, we can also see Religion as ultimately concerned with promoting Christianity, broadly understood, as the most appropriate historical vehicle for the promulgation of rational religion, and thus as a cornerstone of the Enlightenment project.