scholarly journals Secularist Humanism, Law and Religion in Ian McEwan’s The Children Act

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 468
Author(s):  
Camil Ungureanu

Ian McEwan’s The Children Act focuses on a real-life conflict between religion and children’s rights in a pluralist society. By drawing on Charles Taylor’s work on religion in the “secular age”, I argue that McEwan’s narrative is ultimately built on secularist assumptions that devalue religious experience. McEwan’s approach aims to build a bridge between literary imagination and scientific rationality: religion is, from this perspective, reducible to a “fable” and an authority structure incongruous with legal rationality and the quest for meaning in the modern-secular society. In The Children Act, art substitutes religion and its aspiration to transcendence: music in particular is a universal idiom that can overcome barriers of communication and provides “ecstatic” experiences in a godless world.

2009 ◽  
pp. 53-70
Author(s):  
Leonardo Allodi

- The aim of this essay is to examine the theory of secularisation process developed by Charles Taylor in his work, "A Secular Age". With this work an ambitious project is pursued: to offer a new point of view by which to construct a different image of secularisation. Taylor wants to understand the new socio-cultural conditions in which the moral and spiritual search of believers and non-believers develops. The process of modernisation of Western societies, in fact, has not only produced conceptions that are hostile to religion (jacobinism, marxism, anarchism) and conditions which have often made many of the old religious practices impossible, but have also led to creative adaptations of religious experience to the changed sociological conditions. The history of secularisation therefore demonstrates the "improbability" that autonomous religious aspiration has disappeared. Even in the framework of a secular society, religion represents an "anthropological universal". Taylor's theory of secularisation presents a notable affinity with all those theories which refute any form of sociological or biological reductionism, assuming the original nature of the religious phenomenon.Keywords: exclusive humanism, secularization, neutralization, religion, modernity


2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-61
Author(s):  
Valeriy P Ivanskiy ◽  
Sergey I Kovalev

The relevance of the article, which consists of two parts, is that the various theories of rationality presented only in philosophical works are considered. Meanwhile, it should be noted that in recent decades in scientific works on jurisprudence there is a clear trend of borrowing such terms from philosophy as «classical», «non-classical» or «post-non-classical» science in the description of a concept of law. Nevertheless, in legal studies there is still no concept of rationality, the criteria for its classification, allowing to describe the diversity of manifestations of legal reality. The purpose of the study is: 1) to find new non-classical foundations for the development of legal knowledge; 2) to substantiate the point of view that the category of "scientific rationality" and its typology used in philosophy, it is necessary to introduce into scientific use of legal science, which will push the boundaries of knowledge of legal reality; 3) to describe the features of understanding of the term "scientific rationality" in law in the context of its classification into the following two groups: classical and neoclassical (post-classical), as well as non-classical and post-classical. In the process of studying the philosophy of rationality in legal studies used a diverse set of methodological tools: 1) General philosophical methods (dialectical and idealistic); 2) General scientific methods - analysis and synthesis, deduction and induction, analogy, comparison; 3) and private (special) - logical, comparative-legal, formal-legal, normative-dogmatic; 4) method of interpretation, including the method of problem-theoretical reconstruction. The main results of achieving the goal of the study were proposals on: 1) introduction of the concept of "types and models of legal rationality" into the scientific circulation of jurisprudence; 2) classification of legal rationality into classical and non - classical types and corresponding models-neoclassical (post-classical) and post-non-classical. It should be noted that the post-classical and post-non-classical styles of legal thinking are evolved versions, respectively, of the classical and non-classical types of legal rationality. The basis for the classification of types of scientific rationality in legal science was the anthropological factor-consciousness homo juridicus and methodological tools with which legal consciousness is known. The novelty of the study is that the above classification of epistemological paradigms allows us to look at the law as a multilevel reality, which is simultaneously inherent in the two mechanisms of its Constitution - external and internal. Moreover, the presented criteria-based classification of legal rationality is the basis for the development of legal knowledge.


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Ann Stenger

AbstractThis article uses Tillich’s method of correlation to analyze the missing center and polarization in American religion and culture and to propose the symbol of transfiguration/transfiguring as a theological response. In partial agreement with Tillich’s and Mark C. Taylor’s theologies, this analysis focuses on the quest for meaning beyond polar opposites. The second part correlates this quest with the symbol of transfiguration as an image of transcendence in the midst of the finite world. The symbol of transfiguring will be compared to Eastern Orthodox deification, Taylor’s figuring, disfiguring, and refiguring, and Tillich’s New Being and Spiritual Presence, focusing on both religious experience and transfiguring actions.


1983 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-95
Author(s):  
Rodney Shewan

Whenever a new fragment by Wilde appears, it inevitably raises hope that the often vulgarized but still fascinating relationship between the life and the work will somehow be clarified. Did the one really get all the genius, the other merely the talent, as he told Gide? Were the two always so disparate, so irreconcilable, as he insisted? Did work always seems, as he once said it seemed, ‘not a reality but a way of getting rid of reality’? If so, was this why ‘the real life is the life we do not lead’, the life of the literary imagination? Or was it that the ‘real life’ and ordinary life alternately promised Wilde those intense experiences his imagination craved, then took it in turns to double-cross him?


2016 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 513-528
Author(s):  
Daniela Turco

Despite the evidence of a progressive disenchantment, the religious sphere maintains a strong grip on current societies though undertaking some transformations. Pluralism, individualism and privatization are three features we cannot ignore if we choose to study religion in the contemporary world and, more broadly, if we choose to study modernity. The aim of this article is to illustrate some features of the different forms of religiosity in the secular age (Taylor, 2007). We have focused on modern Catholicism, with particular reference to religious experience in the Catholic lay group. The stories of Catholic militants show that the motivation behind their choice is the crucial factor to analyze their religious experience and worldview. In this sense, we will try to reflect on some indicators that can help us to understand the resources and limits of the contemporary Catholic pluralism and the aspects of the ‘modern desire for God’ (Abbruzzese, 2010).


Author(s):  
John Michael

Secular Lyrics interrogates the distinctively individual ways that Poe, Whitman, and Dickinson adapt ancient and renaissance conventions of lyric expression to the developing conditions of their modern context, especially to the heterogeneity of beliefs and believers in a secular society and to the altered or emergent role that literature assumes in a secular age. These poets, in idiosyncratic but related ways, register the pressures of the modern crowd—which Benjamin rightly identified as nineteenth-century poetry’s essential topic—within their poems, where the mass appears as potential readers, as resistant skeptics, as a heterogeneous crowd of contending beliefs and contentious believers. For these poets, the processes of signification rather than the communication of truths become central to their poetry, which in turn becomes an important origin of the modern poetry that in Europe and the United States follows. Each invokes the normative practices that have long characterized Western poetry only to disrupt the audience’s conventional expectations and enliven the reader’s sense of language’s material density and the limits and potentials of modern life.


2002 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Oskar Gruenwald ◽  

This essay explores the conceptual foundations of C. S. Lewis' pilgrimage to a Christian worldview and its implications for Christian scholarship in the Third Millennium. C. S. Lewis' essential Christian worldview has three distinct yet complementary strands: The Tao, Natural Law, or the moral sense; the ecumenical inspiration of Mere Christianity; and the quest for truth and authentic values in the real world. These three strands converge in Lewis' own pilgrimage and witness to the immediacy and relevance of religious experience. Curiously, the reality and truth of the Christian vision finds eloquent exposition in Lewis' lucid prose In the recounting of this consummate storyteller, the Christian worldview emerges as both real and transcendental or "numinous," whose truth is found in historical evidences and lived experience. It is for this reason that Lewis is aptly called an apostle to the sceptics. Lewis' literary imagination thus provides inspiration for a Christian humanist paideia as propaedeutic to renew both liberal arts education and the culture of liberalism.


2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 184-199
Author(s):  
Valeriy P. Ivanskiy ◽  
Sergey I. Kovalev

The relevance of the article, which consists of two parts, is that the various theories of rationality presented only in philosophical works are considered. Meanwhile, it should be noted that in recent decades in scientific works on jurisprudence there is a clear trend of borrowing such terms from philosophy as “classical”, “non-classical” or “post-non-classical” science in the description of a concept of law. Nevertheless, in legal studies there is still no concept of rationality, the criteria for its classification, allowing to describe the diversity of manifestations of legal reality. The purpose of the study is: 1) to find new non-classical foundations for the development of legal knowledge; 2) to substantiate the point of view that the category of “scientific rationality” and its typology used in philosophy, it is necessary to introduce into scientific use of legal science, which will push the boundaries of knowledge of legal reality; 3) to describe the features of understanding of the term "scientific rationality" in law in the context of its classification into the following two groups: classical and neoclassical (post-classical), as well as non-classical and post-classical. In the process of studying the philosophy of rationality in legal studies used a diverse set of methodological tools : 1) General philosophical methods (dialectical and idealistic); 2) General scientific methods - analysis and synthesis, deduction and induction, analogy, comparison; 3) and private (special) - logical, comparative-legal, formal-legal, normative-dogmatic; 4) method of interpretation, including the method of problem-theoretical reconstruction. The main results of achieving the goal of the study were proposals on: 1) introduction of the concept of “types and models of legal rationality” into the scientific circulation of jurisprudence; 2) classification of legal rationality into classical and non - classical types and corresponding models-neoclassical (post-classical) and post-non-classical. It should be noted that the post-classical and post-non-classical styles of legal thinking are evolved versions, respectively, of the classical and non-classical types of legal rationality. The basis for the classification of types of scientific rationality in legal science was the anthropological factor-consciousness homo juridicus and methodological tools with which legal consciousness is known. The novelty of the study is that the above classification of epistemological paradigms allows us to look at the law as a multilevel reality, which is simultaneously inherent in the two mechanisms of its Constitution - external and internal. Moreover, the presented criteria-based classification of legal rationality is the basis for the development of legal knowledge.


2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Arnold M. Meiring

In a secular society, obsessed with materialism and consumerism, the 13th-century mystical teacher and poet, Jalaluddin Rumi (1207–1273), has found a surprisingly widespread following. While his work is often misunderstood and diluted, this research proposed the opposite: that Rumi may broaden his modern admirers’ worldview and bring about an encounter with God. This study thus applied the insights of an 800-year-old mystic to the questions of today. The research comprised of a qualitative literature research method that first explored the life and writings of Rumi, and then investigated the issues and yearnings of a secular society as proposed by philosopher Charles Taylor. The study showed that Rumi may indeed open up the enclosed secular worldview by adding significance to our living, God to our loving and hope to our dying.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article was a study in religion – applying the work of a medieval Sufi mystic to the philosophical questions of today. It also considered Anatolian history and Persian literature and offered philosophical options. It further related to missiology, as well as systematic and practical theology.


2007 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Bélair ◽  
Christine Lebel

Cet article examine divers phénomènes ayant permis à des enseignants de trouver du sens à leur profession et persévérer dans l’exercice de celle-ci, notamment dans les premières années d’entrée en fonction. Plus précisément, notre recherche porte sur une dimension peu explorée dans la littérature, et s’attarde à des éléments positifs marquants de la profession relatés par des enseignants franco-ontariens. Ces épisodes de récits de vie racontées de manière anecdotique procèdent d’une forme privilégiée d'expression tant de la formation et de l'identité des personnes que de la quête de sens, en rapport avec le vécu subjectif des enseignants, dans un contexte minoritaire. La question générale de cette étude se présente comme suit : Quels sont, d’après les enseignants franco-ontariens, les événements saillants positifs qui les ont marqués surtout en début de carrière, et qui favorisent chez eux la persévérance dans l’exercice de la profession ? Les résultats sont discutés à partir de trois préoccupations : les catégories d’évènements marquants positifs qui émergent ; les différences relatives au profil de carrière selon le modèle de Huberman (1989) ; les différences relatives au sexe et à l’expérience. This article examines various phenomena that allow teachers to find a meaning in their profession and persevere in the discharge of their duties, especially during their first years in this field. More precisely, our research focuses on a less explored dimension in the literature and dwells upon the profession's most significant positive elements reported by Franco-Ontarian teachers. These life stories told in an anecdotal manner, come from a privileged form of expression as much from their training and from their personal identity as well as their quest for meaning, dealing with the teachers' subjective real-life experiences in a minority context. The general question of this study is: According to these Franco-Ontarian teachers, what are the most prominent and positive events that have influenced them, especially during the beginning of their career, and that have furthered in them perseverance in the discharge of their duties? We then discuss the findings from the three preoccupations: emerging positive events, differences related to their career's profile, according to Huberman's model (1989); and differences related to their gender and experience.


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