The Disenchantment of the World: A Political History of Religion - Rilegato

Gauchet, Marcel

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0691044066 ISBN 13: 9780691044064

Casa editrice: Princeton Univ Pr, 1997

Riassunto

Marcel Gauchet has launched one of the most ambitious and controversial works of speculative history recently to appear, based on the contention that Christianity is "the religion of the end of religion." InThe Disenchantment of the World, Gauchet reinterprets the development of the modern west, with all its political and psychological complexities, in terms of mankind's changing relation to religion. He views Western history as a movement away from religious society, beginning with prophetic Judaism, gaining tremendous momentum in Christianity, and eventually leading to the rise of the political state. Gauchet's view that monotheistic religion itself was a form of social revolution is rich with implications for readers in fields across the humanities and social sciences.

Life in religious society, Gauchet reminds us, involves a very different way of being than we know in our secular age: we must imagine prehistoric times where ever-present gods controlled every aspect of daily reality, and where ancestor worship grounded life's meaning in a far-off past. As prophecy-oriented religions shaped the concept of a single omnipotent God, one removed from the world and yet potentially knowable through prayer and reflection, human beings became increasingly free. Gauchet's paradoxical argument is that the development of human political and psychological autonomy must be understood against the backdrop of this double movement in religious consciousness--the growth of divine power and its increasing distance from human activity.

In a fitting tribute to this passionate and brilliantly argued book, Charles Taylor offers an equally provocative foreword. Offering interpretations of key concepts proposed by Gauchet, Taylor also explores an important question: Does religion have a place in the future of Western society? The book does not close the door on religion but rather invites us to explore its socially constructive powers, which continue to shape Western politics and conceptions of the state.

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Recensione:

"There is a stubborn kernel of truth here. It is that a liberal order may find a friend in religion because God's otherness is what makes us free: free to believe and free not to believe. Western history is the unfolding of this irony."--Jean Bethke Elshtain, The New Republic

Contenuti:

Foreword by Charles Taylor Ix
Introduction 3
Part One: THE METAMORPHOSES OF THE DIVINE
THE ORIGIN, MEANING, AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE RELIGIOUS
The Historicity of the Religious 21
CHAPTER 1 Primeval Religion or the Reign of the Absolute Past 23
CHAPTER 2 The State as Sacral Transforming Agent 33
Hierarchy 37
Domination 39
Conquest 41
The Axial Age 43
CHAPTER 3 The Dynamics of Transcendence 47
Distancing God and Understanding the World 51
Divine Greatness, Human Liberty 57
From Myth to Reason 62
From Dependence to Autonomy 64
CHAPTER 4 From Immersion in Nature to Transforming Nature 67
Indebtedness to the Gods, the Inter-Human Bond, and the Relation to Things 68
THE POLITICAL MACHINE 70
THE VITALITY OF CHANGE 72
The Other World and Appropriating This World 74
Heaven and Earth: Christianity's Specificity 76
ORTHODOXY AND HERESY 79
INCARNATION AND INTERPRETATION 81
PRAYER AND WORK 84
The Structure of Terrestrial Integrity 86
THE CROWDED WORLD 87
COLLECTIVE PERMANENCE 88
PEACE 92
HOMO OECONOMICUS 94
Part Two: THE APOGEE AND DEATH OF GOD
CHRISTIANITY AND WESTERN DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 5 The Powers of the Divine Subject 101
A Religion for Departing from Religion 101
Israel. Inventing God-as-One 107
MOSES: DOMINATING DOMINATION 108
THE COVENANT AND TRIAL BY ADVERSITY 109
THE PROPHETS 110
Jesus: The God-Man 115
MESSIANISM 115
THE SECOND MOSES 117
AN INVERTED MESSIAH 118
SAINT PAUL: THE UNIVERSAL GOD 124
CHRISTOLOGY 125
CONQUERING THE CONQUERORS 127
The Christian Revolution: Faith, Church, King 130
The Greeks: The Religion of Reason 44
The Turn toward Equality 151
CHAPTER 6 Figures of the Human Subject 162
Being-a-Self: Consciousness, the Unconscious 166
Collective-Being. Governing the Future 172
FROM SUBJUGATED SOCIETY TO SOCIAL-SUBJECT 173
THE AGE OF IDEOLOGY 176
THE CHILD AND THE FUTURE 179
BUREAUCRACY, DEMOCRACY 180
THE POWER OF THE IDENTICAL AND THE SOCIETY OF
THE NEW 185
Living-with-Ourselves: Absorbing the Other 190
POLITICAL CONFLICT 191
THE SEPARATION OF THE STATE 195
The Religious after Religion 200
Notes 209
Bibliography 221
Index 225

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Princeton Univ Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0691044066
• ISBN 13: 9780691044064
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 228