An interesting European treatment of religion in public life has recently appeared. There appears to be some hope that cracks may be appearing in the deeply rooted wall of academic secularism. But not much.
Continental European understanding of "religion" has been profoundly sociological since no later than the early 19th century. Certainly by the time of August Comte religion in Europe has been seen as an evanescent, primitive phenomenon destined to be outgrown in the course of social if not biological evolution. European academic treatments of religion have thus been entirely "external," that is, treating the phenomenon of religious belief and practice from the mono-perspective of naturalism, with little regard to the substantive content of either. Religion as a virus or meme.
Unadorned secularism, however, as even academics should see, is too thin an explanation to understand contemporary European civil society. That in part is the conclusion of two Dutch scholars at Erasmus University in Religion in the 21st Century Debating the Post-Secular Turn (abstract here), an introduction to a symposium issue of the university's law review. It's only three pages but gives not only an introduction to the symposium but a very brief précis of the state of the "secularity" debate among European academics today.
FWIW, providing a fuller-orbed understanding of private law (i.e., contract) has been one of the principal burdens of my academic writings. The relationship of a particular religion and the law is the thrust of Mission Possible (abstract here), Consideration in the Common Law of Contracts (abstract here), and Principled Pluralism and Contract Remedies (abstract here). For a very short (and accessible, I think) introduction to my thinking on the subject see The Law of Contracts: A Place to Start (abstract here).
Continental European understanding of "religion" has been profoundly sociological since no later than the early 19th century. Certainly by the time of August Comte religion in Europe has been seen as an evanescent, primitive phenomenon destined to be outgrown in the course of social if not biological evolution. European academic treatments of religion have thus been entirely "external," that is, treating the phenomenon of religious belief and practice from the mono-perspective of naturalism, with little regard to the substantive content of either. Religion as a virus or meme.
Unadorned secularism, however, as even academics should see, is too thin an explanation to understand contemporary European civil society. That in part is the conclusion of two Dutch scholars at Erasmus University in Religion in the 21st Century Debating the Post-Secular Turn (abstract here), an introduction to a symposium issue of the university's law review. It's only three pages but gives not only an introduction to the symposium but a very brief précis of the state of the "secularity" debate among European academics today.
FWIW, providing a fuller-orbed understanding of private law (i.e., contract) has been one of the principal burdens of my academic writings. The relationship of a particular religion and the law is the thrust of Mission Possible (abstract here), Consideration in the Common Law of Contracts (abstract here), and Principled Pluralism and Contract Remedies (abstract here). For a very short (and accessible, I think) introduction to my thinking on the subject see The Law of Contracts: A Place to Start (abstract here).
No comments:
Post a Comment