Modernity's Wager: Authority, the Self, and Transcendence
- ISBN-10
- 1400824699
- ISBN-13
- 9781400824694
- Category
- Philosophy
- Pages
- 192
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2009-02-09
- Publisher
- Princeton University Press
- Author
- Adam B. Seligman
Description
Adam Seligman, one of our most important social thinkers, continues the incisive critique of modernity he began in his previously acclaimed The Idea of Civil Society and The Problem of Trust. In this provocative new work of social philosophy, Seligman evaluates modernity's wager, namely, the gambit to liberate the modern individual from external social and religious norms by supplanting them with the rational self as its own moral authority. Yet far from ensuring the freedom of the individual, Seligman argues, "the fundamentalist doctrine of enlightened reason has called into being its own nemesis" in the forms of ethnic, racial, and identity politics. Seligman counters that the modern human must recover a notion of authority that is essentially transcendent, but which extends tolerance to those of other--or no--faiths. Through its denial of an authority rooted in an experience of transcendence, modernity fails to account for individual and collective moral action. First, deprived of a sacred source of the self, depictions of moral action are reduced to motives of self interest. Second, dismissing the sacred leaves the resurgence of religious movements unexplained. In this rigorous and imaginative study, Seligman seeks to discover a durable source of moral authority in a liberalized world. His study of shame, pride, collective guilt, and collective responsibility demonstrates the mutual relationship between individual responsibility and communal authority. Furthermore, Seligman restores the indispensable role of religious traditions--as well as the features of those traditions that enhance, rather than denigrate, tolerance. Sociologists, political theorists, moral philosophers, and intellectual historians will find Seligman's thesis enlightening, as will anyone concerned with the ethical and religious foundations of a tolerant society.
Get the book
Similar books
-
Ecofeminist Philosophy: A Western Perspective on what it is and why it Matters
By Karen WarrenWijkman and Timberlake , Natural Disasters , 27 . 32. Wijkman and Timberlake , Natural Disasters , 49 . 33. Seager , New State of the Earth Atlas , 121 .
-
Each Day a Renewed Beginning: Meditations for a Peaceful Journey
By Karen Casey7. Sometimes the things that frighten you the most can be the biggest sources of strength. —Iris Timberlake or Most of us learn as we mature that strength.
-
Emerging Trends in Continental Philosophy
By Todd May28 It is therefore not difficult to reconcile Badiou«s references to historical ... On the one hand, Badiou«s major essays on Rancière all deal with the ...
-
Pierre Bayle's Cartesian Metaphysics: Rediscovering Early Modern Philosophy
By Todd RyanBayle offers a similar assessment in a letter to Minutoli: There has just been ... touchant la tran[s]substantiation, et leur conformité avec le calvinisme.
-
Negotiating a Settlement in Northern Ireland, 1969-2019
By John Coakley, Jennifer ToddHowever, acceptance of the deal was driven in part by threats of worse to come should agreement ... see Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Act 2006, s.
-
The Philosopher's Way
By Pearson Education, Pearson Education Staff, Inc.Several versions of Pearson's MyLab & Mastering products exist for each title, including customized versions for individual schools, and registrations are not transferable.
-
Swimmer in a Dark Sea
By Pierce TimberlakeTake a tour through the mind of America's undiscovered philosopher: Pierce Timberlake. Swimmer in a Dark Sea is a dizzying ride through a dazzling array of profound concepts.
-
Bringing Peace Home: Feminism, Violence, and Nature
By Karen Warren, Duane L. Cady"This collection of works is ambitious, well documented, thoroughly—though not turgidly—referenced, and comprehensively indexed.
-
Ecological Feminism
By Karen Warren, Barbara Wells-HoweThe essays in this volume deal with a wide variety of subjects - the essential distinction between the "ecofeminist" and the "ecofeminine," the link between violence and environmental exploitation, feminism's relationship to animal rights ...
-
Catharine Macaulay's Republican Enlightenment
By Karen Green6 Davies, Catharine Macaulay and Mercy Otis Warren, 228; Franklin Bowditch Dexter (ed.), The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles (New York: C. Scribner's Sons, ...