Between Naturalism and Religion: Philosophical Essays
Two countervailing trends mark the intellectual tenor of our age - the spread of naturalistic worldviews and the revival of religious orthodoxies. Advances in biogenetics, brain research, and robotics are preparing the ground for the entry of an objective scientific self-understanding of persons into everyday life. This trend is associated for philosophy with the challenge of scientific naturalism. At the same time, we are witnessing an unexpected revitalization of religious traditions and...
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Two countervailing trends mark the intellectual tenor of our age – the spread of naturalistic worldviews and religious orthodoxies. Advances in biogenetics, brain research, and robotics are clearing the way for the penetration of an objective scientific self-understanding of persons into everyday life. For philosophy, this trend is associated with the challenge of scientific naturalism. At the same time, we are witnessing an unexpected revitalization of religious traditions and the politicization of religious communities across the world. From a philosophical perspective, this revival of religious energies poses the challenge of a fundamentalist critique of the principles underlying the modern Wests postmetaphysical understanding of itself.The tension between naturalism and religion is the central theme of this major new book by Jürgen Habermas. On the one hand he argues for an appropriate naturalistic understanding of cultural evolution that does justice to the normative character of the human mind. On the other hand, he calls for an appropriate interpretation of the secularizing effects of a process of social and cultural rationalization increasingly denounced by the champions of religious orthodoxies as a historical development peculiar to the West. These reflections on the enduring importance of religion and the limits of secularism under conditions of postmetaphysical reason set the scene for an extended treatment the political significance of religious tolerance and for a fresh contribution to current debates on cosmopolitanism and a constitution for international society.
Introduction 1The Intersubjective Constitution of Norm-governed Thought 9Public Space and Political Public Sphere - The Biographical Roots of Two Motifs in my Thought 11Communicative Action and the Detranscendentalized "Use of Reason" 24On the Architectonics of Discursive Differentiation: A Brief Response to a Major Controversy 77Religious Pluralism and Civic Solidarity 99Prepolitical Foundations of the Constitutional State? 101Religion in the Public Sphere: Cognitive Presuppositions for the "Public Use of Reason" by Religious and Secular Citizens 114Naturalism and Religion 149Freedom and Determinism 151"I Myself am Part of Nature" - Adorno on the Intrication of Reason in Nature: Reflections on the Relation between Freedom and Unavailability 181The Boundary between Faith and Knowledge: On the Reception and Contemporary Importance of Kant's Philosophy of Religion 209Tolerance 249Religious Tolerance as Pacemaker for Cultural Rights 251Equal Treatment of Cultures and the Limits of Postmodern Liberalism 271A Political Constitution for the Pluralist World Society? 312Index 353
