Secularization and Modernity - Interdisciplinary Readings, 1750‐1914

8/13/2019 Secularization and Modernity - Interdisciplinary Readings, 17501914

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Introduction Page1 11/11/2008

SecularizationandModernity:

InterdisciplinaryReadings,17501914

Tomakeacaseforthetopicalityandrelevance

of the secular in contemporary Western

Europeanand

North

American

societies

today

may seem like an exercise in redundancy.

Afterall,withasteadystreamofbooksissuing

from the popular press, and featuring such

nuancedtitlesasGodisnotGreat(C.Hitchens),

The God Delusion (R. Dawkins), or God: the

FailedHypothesis (V. Stenger)to saynothing

of a veritable torrent of equally shrill

publicationsfromtheothersideofanintensely

polarized debatethe apparent antinomy of

religionand the secularcontinues togive rise

toan

often

militantly

acrimonious

culture

of

debate. Yetprecisely thispolemicalnatureof

the ongoing debate over the secular also

continues to forestall a genuinely informed

andsearchingconsiderationofsocialprocesses

that, for several centuriesbynow,havebeen

often axiomatically viewed as teleologically

oriented towards a fully secularized world.

Coveting instead shortterm notoriety in the

publishing world or deliberately

manufacturing soundbite claims for speedy

consumptionby

an

endlessly

voracious

and

distracted mediaculture, current arguments

aboutsecularizationhavethemselvesemerged

as amajor obstacle to thoughtful debate and

theadvancementofknowledge.

A principal objective of the course on

Secularization and Modernityto be enhanced

bymaterialscontainedonthiswebpageisto

preserveandextendthescopeofcivicliteracy

foranewgenerationofadultsbyhelpingthem

think through the complex historical and

intellectual origins and development of these

twokeyconcepts. Ifthecurrent,vigorousand,

at timesmerely vociferous, debate regarding

the legitimacyof(supposedly)secularoranti

secular communities is to yield meaningful

results, its participantswill have tobeginby

elaborating a philosophically coherent and

historically differentiated framework for that

debate. In undertaking an at least partial

reexamination of the twin concepts of

modernity and secularization, this new

lecturecourse

aims

to

make

acontribution

to

whatmightbecalledcivicliteracy.

Such a task is significantly complicated,

however, by our own situation in the

contemporary academy, which is far from

innocentinitsoutlookoneitherofthisprojects

eponymous concepts. For the prevailing

methodological commitment to neutrality,

objectivity, and to detached or dispassionate

inquiryso studiously cultivatedby the social

sciencessince

their

inception

at

the

end

of

the

nineteenth centurycannot be regarded and

embraced as awholly innocent perspective.

Rather, as a number of intellectuals have

remarked, the modern universitys basic

disciplinary configurationand counterintuitive

methodological habitus, to say nothing of its

overwhelmingly corporate mode of

knowledgeproduction, leaves its members

strongly, and often enthusiastically implicated

in an underlying, progressive narrative of

secularization;as

we

shall

find,

that

narrative

in

turn rests on ones unexamined belief in an

accumulative conception of knowledge as a

professionalcommodity.1

A critical examination of secularization and

modernity thus cannot begin without a

reflection on the extent to which our own

institutional culture may potentially interfere

withitsaims,simplybecauseitisitselfacentral

productofthedevelopmentunderinvestigation.

Partofthecoursesinitialmissionthusinvolves

clearing the ground for a genuinely open

consideration of secularization. Doing so,

1See thetitlesbyHannahArendt,CharlesTaylor,

AlasdairMcIntyre,LouisDupr,MichaelBuckley,

andJohnMilbankonthegeneralbibliography.


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however,means exploring the genesis of the

secularnotmerelyasanacademictopicsuch

as it has been explored by a variety of

disciplines(history,politicalscience,sociology,

religious studies, etc.). For behind the

professionalnarratives

of

secularization

as

the

inexorable melting away of metaphysical or

outright mystical practices before the

onslaughtofmodernLiberalismandavariety

ofmethodologiesaimedat (putatively)value

neutral inquiry,whatwe findwhenpursuing

the twin questions of secularization and

modernity in a thoughtful and informed

way is us. For ifwe truly scrutinize the

prevailing(ifvaried)storyofsecularizationas

a process moving ahead slowly but

unrelentinglytowards

our

own

present,

we

willfindourselvesconfrontingourown,deep

seated, albeit problematic assumptions about

the nature and ends of knowledge itself. It

follows that one ought to guard against the

apparent circularity of telling the story of

secularizationfromwithinasingledisciplinary

and methodological vantagepoint, since the

latterwillinalllikelihoodturnouttobeitselfa

productofsecularization. Thusourcoursewill

consider accounts about modernity and the

secularas

they

issue

from

avariety

of

disciplines; in some cases, itwillalsobecome

apparenthowthedisciplines inquestion(e.g.,

sociology) could only emerge by virtue of

having settled on secularization as their

privilegedobjectofprofessionalinquiry.

A related aim of this class, then, is to

counteract the prevalent undergraduate

experience of college as so many ephemeral

anddisjointed intellectual encounterswith so

many topics,methodologies, and disciplinary

perspectives. Its internal ambiguities

notwithstanding, theconceptofsecularization

canbemosthelpful in this regard; for itmay

justifiablybe investigated as themastertrope

choreographing the seemingly unrelated,

complex strands of political, economic,

scientific, and cultural change that are often

subsumed under the umbrella concept of

modernity. Particularly in the firstcoupleof

weeks,then,weshallparseandsiftanumberof

key concepts, either surfacing for the first time

orrevived

during

the

seventeenth

and

early

eighteenth century. Among them are those of

(human) rights, Liberalism, political economy,

moral philosophy, individual freedom,

teleology, and natural law, etc.all of which

have decisively shaped the questions,

approaches,andobjectivesofadvanced inquiry

inthehumanitiesandsocialsciencestothisvery

day.

Theoverallobjectiveofthisclass,then,istopay

particularattention

to

the

interpretive

(rather

thanmerely informational)natureofknowledge

in humanities and, to some extent, the social

sciences. Understood as products of complex

traditions of inquiry and histories of

transmission, concepts and the ideas that they

embody are not merely tools (certainly not

reliable ones) unlesswe also understand their

history and changing function over significant

expanses of human time. For example, our

prevailing conception of method is of relatively

recentprovenance,

finding

its

most

influential

articulation in thewritingsofBacon,Descartes,

Bayle. Assuch, the ideaofmethodreveals the

breakdownoftheancientGreeknotionofkosmos

(order)asithadbeenvariouslyelaboratedby

Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and other thinkers

well intothemiddleAges. Withinthephysical

andmoral order of such cosmologicalmodels

(arguably culminatingAquinaswritingsof the

laterthirteenthcentury),everybeingandentity

has its own essence (somewhat related to

whatwe todaymeanby identity)which, in

thecourseofitsexistence,itstrivestofulfill.

By contrast, the distinctly modern idea of

method replaces the essentially contemplative

dynamic of such a theory with an active and

interventionist process of inquiry. Under this


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newperspective,there isnopreformedorder

(Aquinasuniversals)orkosmos;rather,there

ismerelyanaggregateofsomanydiscreteand

heterogeneous entities, summarily referred to

as nature. Thisnovel conception,which is

prettymuch

in

place

by

the

early

seventeenth

century,alsopositsnatureasasumtotalof

so many passive and indifferent entities,

devoid ofmeaning or value except for those

that a pragmaticallyminded observer/user

choosestoassignthem. Toputitpolemically,

themodern ideaofnature isnot thevictim

of (ecologically disastrous) conquest but its

conceptualjustification. WhatMilton alludes

towhentellingusoftheconquistadoresrifling

through thebowelsof the earth inquest for

goldand

other

minerals

thus

is

the

result

of

a

splitbetweenthenaturalandtheethicalorder

which, for the preSocratics, Plato, Aristotle,

the Stoics, and theAugustinian traditionhad

alwaysbeenprofoundlyentwined. Following

that split, it isparticularly the latternotionof

the kosmos as a normative, ethical order

realized by what Aristotle calls practical

reason(phronsis)whichrapidlyfadesaway.

It isno coincidence, then, that the emergence

ofmodern,

methodological,

specialized,

and

interventionistwaysofknowingunfoldsmore

or less parallel to the rise of an isolated or

punctual self (C. Taylor) as it is being

conceptualized by a number of diversely

oriented writers during the sixteenth and

seventeenth century (Luther, Erasmus,

Descartes, Hobbes, Leibniz, Locke, among

others). There are, of course, numerous

characteristics that distinguish this modern,

isolated and selfgrounded individual from,

say, human beings as Aristotle or St.

Augustine conceiveof them. One of them is

that this new type of individual understands

itself as endowed withand increasingly

definedbyasetofclaimrightsratherthanby

asetofinherited,normativeethicalobligations

towards a given community. Concurrently,

the seventeenth and early eighteenth century

witnesses the displacement of a rhythmic,

epiphanic,andspiritualconceptionoftimewith

one emphasizing chronometric uniformity and

linearprogressalbeit toagoal thatremains

oddlyunspecified

and

murky.

This

shift

in

the

experienceand interpretationofhumantime in

turn facilitates the conversion of practices

formerly considered unfree (Aristotle) or

sinful(St.Augustine)inparticularthequest

for affluence and personal enrichment so

strongly premised by the rise of political

economyintheearlyeighteenthcentury. What

hadbeen longproscribedas instancesofgreed

and a lust for conquest (cupiditas, libido

dominandi)begintobereinterpretedasthevery

groundsof

virtuous

economic

behavior.

WhatC. B.Macpherson has labeled the era of

possessive individualismarising in the

eighteenth century, consolidating itself in the

nineteenth,andarguably finding itsapotheosis

inourown timethuscentersonanewmodel

ofhumanagency. Relentlesslyspeculative,self

interested, and forever mobile (both in the

geographical and virtual sense), thismodel of

homo economicus eventually defeats the ancient

Greek andHellenistic conceptionof the self as

embeddedin

specific

communities

the

polis,the

church (ecclesia)which in turn would be

responsible for socializing the individual and

apprenticing it to their norms and to some

socially relevant, vocational pursuit or craft

(techn). In its stead, we can observe the

emergence of a professional and essentially

utilitarian conception of learning as the open

ended acquisitionof anew commodityknown

asinformation,which isof course themodel

thatdefinesmostofwhat transpires in schools

anduniversitiestoday. Ourowninquiryinthis

class will pick up just as that process of

disembedding reaches an unprecedented

velocity around the middle of the eighteenth

century. For more information about the

trajectory of readings and discussion in this

class,pleaseclickonSyllabi.


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This coursebearsanR (research),aCCI,and

an EI (writing) designation, and thiswebsitehas been constructed with the aim of

facilitating your awareness of the multiple

waysin

which

the

issues

of

secularization

and

modernityhavebeenstudiedtodate. Tothat

end, you will find some general and

specialized bibliographies, encyclopedia

entries on keyconcepts, a glossary of terms,

biographicalaccountsofourprincipalwriters,

amultitude of links to databases of primary

texts and external websites, as well as a

number of images (with commentary).

Additionally,therewillberegularpostingsof

potentialtopicsforstudentresearch,aswellas

samplesof

outstanding

student

work

from

yearspast.

ThomasPfau

Summer2008

Secularization and Modernity - Interdisciplinary Readings, 1750‐1914

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Transcript of Secularization and Modernity - Interdisciplinary Readings, 1750‐1914