Tragedies of the Secular Age (original) (raw)
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Between Secularity and Post-Secularity: Critical Appraisal of Charles Taylor's Account
Bogoslovni vestnik
The article deals with Charles Taylor's account of the secular age. In the first part, the main constituents of Taylor's narrative account are presented: the central concepts, distinctions, definition of the subject, the aims etc. The author pays special attention to the notions of secularity, secular age, religion, and transcendence. In the second part, Taylor's genealogy of the secular age is outlined and comparatively placed in the context of other main relative forms of genealogical account. Because our age is an age of authenticity, a special section is devoted to it. The final section presents some reproaches to Taylor and evaluates their strength and the value of Taylor's contribution. Besides, some speculative »forecasts« about secularity and post-secularity in Europe, the USA, and at the global scale are presented (by reference to Taylor's account). The author concludes that despite some (serious and cogent) reproaches and second thoughts about Taylor...
Can Secularism be Other-wise? (A Critique of Charles Taylor's A Secular Age)
Given the extensive commentary and discussion that has followed the publication of A Secular Age, any further re flection on this work seems to risk repetition and redundancy. To avoid this, I will focus for the most part on three issues that I think have received little attention so far. These are: (1) the normative thrust of Taylor's account of secularism in Euro-Atlantic Christian so ci e ties; (2) the relationship of this largely subjectivist account to political secularism; and (3) the place accorded to religious difference in Taylor's vision for reshaping contemporary Christianity in Western liberal so ci e ties.
ucalgary.ca
My lecture this evening focuses on the latest book by Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor entitled, A Secular Age (2007). 1 The book has been attracting wide attention in the scholarly community and, I think, justly so. He offers valuable insights into the complex factors that have given rise to secularism in the West. Taylor also offers insight into the continuing strength of religious faith in our day and explains why many secularization theorists, who prophesied the demise of religion, have been wrong. It is in a spirit of respect and appreciation that I offer my reading of Taylor's new book.
A Comparison of Charles Taylor and Talal Asad on the Issue of Secularity
Ayşe Polat, 2012
Talal Asad and Charles Taylor have been thinking and writing about secularism for at least one decade. Their works are widely read, discussed, and admired. They, by and large, constitute the contemporary framework of discussion for those interested in issues revolving around secularization, secularism, and the secular, which although are terms that refer to distinctive phenomena, are often misused as if they are either the same or simply aspects of the same process. However, these two scholars still hold significantly different, if not mutually contradictory, ideas about secularism. The aim of this article is not to provide a summary of their thoughts on secularism, but rather, to compare and contrast their critically different approaches to the issue of secularism. In this regard, this article argues that an unbridgeable gap exists between Asad's and Taylor's approaches to and engagements with the secular. This article first covers Taylor's and then Asad's approach and method through a close reading of Taylor's A Secular Age, and Asad's Genealogies of Religion, Formations of the Secular, and the edited volume on him, Powers of the Secular Modern.
process that we call secularization, and his intention is to demonstrate the inadequacy of mainstream secularization theory (MST). The MST generally states that 1) in the modern period, beginning in the 17th century and increasingly in the 19 th , the place of religion in public life declined and religious belief and practice substantially decreased; 2) these changes are the result of something like industrialization, urbanization, the differentiation of value spheres, or the progress of the natural sciences; and 3) that this decline and decrease should be seen as a linear progression, was all but inevitable, and will almost certainly continue. The MST is an example of what Taylor calls "subtraction stories," the chief culprits in Taylor's account.
Charles Taylor on Secularization: Introduction and Interview
According to Charles Taylor secularization is not so much a process that has developed on neutral epistemic grounds, but rather on moral and spiritual grounds. One aspect of this process is the turn to 'personal religion' mediated by the Reformation. This shift fits a broad cultural pattern that arose during modernity and that he refers to as the ethics of authenticity. This led not only to a rise in new kinds of religion and spirituality, but also in the number of people who are declaring themselves to be atheist or agnostic. In the interview, Taylor explains how this process can be interpreted in terms of a gradual shift from a hierarchical social imaginary, where God is present in the sacred, to a horizontal social imaginary in the form of a providential design. He also discusses how the backlash against multiculturalism might be related to the process of secularization.