The Disenchantment of the World

by Gauchet, Marcel; Burge, Oscar

• ISBN13: 9780691044064
• ISBN10: 0691044066
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1997-12-01
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

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." In The 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

Author Biography

Marcel Gauchet is Professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. He is the editor of Le Debat, France's most influential intellectual journal, and the author of numerous books. This current book was published in France as Le Desenchantement du monde.

Table of Contents

Foreword	IX
Charles Taylor
Introduction	3	(18)
Part One: THE METAMORPHOSES OF THE DIVINE THE ORIGIN, MEANING, AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE RELIGIOUS The Historicity of the Religious	21	(80)
CHAPTER 1 Primeval Religion of the Reign of the Absolute Past	23	(10)
CHAPTER 2 The State as Sacral Transforming Agent	33	(14)
Hierarchy	37	(2)
Domination	39	(2)
Conquest	41	(2)
The Axial Age	43	(4)
CHAPTER 3 The Dynamics of Transcendence	47	(20)
Distancing God and Understanding the World	51	(6)
Divine Greatness, Human Liberty	57	(5)
From Myth to Reason	62	(2)
From Dependence to Autonomy	64	(3)
CHAPTER 4 From Immersion in Nature to Transforming Nature	67	(34)
Indebtedness to the Gods, the Inter-Human Bond, and the Relation to Things	68	(6)
THE POLITICAL MACHINE	70	(2)
THE VITALITY OF CHANGE	72	(2)
The Other World and Appropriating This World	74	(2)
Heaven and Earth: Christianity's Specificity	76	(10)
ORTHODOXY AND HERESY	79	(2)
INCARNATION AND INTERPRETATION	81	(3)
PRAYER AND WORK	84	(2)
The Structure of Terrestrial Integrity	86	(15)
THE CROWDED WORLD	87	(1)
COLLECTIVE PERMANENCE	88	(4)
PEACE	92	(2)
HOMO OECONOMICUS	94	(7)
Part Two: THE APOGEE AND DEATH OF GOD CHRISTIANITY AND WESTERN DEVELOPMENT	101	(108)
CHAPTER 5 The Powers of the Divine Subject	101	(61)
A Religion for Departing from Religion	101	(6)
Israel: Inventing God-as-One	107	(8)
MOSES: DOMINATING DOMINATION	108	(1)
THE COVENANT AND TRIAL BY ADVERSITY	109	(1)
THE PROPHETS	110	(5)
Jesus: The God-Man	115	(15)
MESSIANISM	115	(2)
THE SECOND MOSES	117	(1)
AN INVERTED MESSIAH	118	(6)
SAINT PAUL: THE UNIVERSAL GOD	124	(1)
CHRISTOLOGY	125	(2)
CONQUERING THE CONQUERORS	127	(3)
The Christian Revolution: Faith, Church, King	130	(14)
The Greeks: The Religion of Reason	144	(7)
The Turn toward Equality	151	(11)
CHAPTER 6 Figures of the Human Subject	162	(47)
Being-a-Self: Consciousness, the Unconscious	166	(6)
Collective-Being: Governing the Future	172	(18)
FROM SUBJUGATED SOCIETY TO SOCIAL-SUBJECT	173	(3)
THE AGE OF IDEOLOGY	176	(3)
THE CHILD AND THE FUTURE	179	(1)
BUREAUCRACY, DEMOCRACY	180	(5)
THE POWER OF THE IDENTICAL AND THE SOCIETY OF THE NEW	185	(5)
Living-with-Ourselves: Absorbing the Other	190	(10)
POLITICAL CONFLICT	191	(4)
THE SEPARATION OF THE STATE	195	(5)
The Religious after Religion	200	(9)
Notes	209	(12)
Bibliography	221	(4)
Index	225