Notes toward a Postsecular History of Modern British Secularization

This article argues that British historiography's secularization debate is largely misconceived, being enmeshed in secular ideological assumptions inherited from the West's secular revolution of the 1960s. It therefore introduces an alternative, postsecular paradigm for understanding British secularization, which conceptualizes secularity as an ideological culture in its own right, religion as secularity's othering category, and secularization as the positive dissemination and enactment of secularity. British Christianity declined gradually from around 1900, but widespread secularization in this positive sense could only happen once British public discussion had embraced secularity's ideological framework, which it did in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Before the mid-1950s, British discussion had routinely adhered to a “Christian civilization” metanarrative, which insisted that “religion” is essential to long-term social stability, such that “secularization” is a regrettable step backward in human development. Yet in the late 1950s and early 1960s British discussion abruptly embraced secularity's rival metanarrative, which states that “religion” is a primordial condition unnecessary in “advanced” societies, such that “secularization” is an irreversible step forward in human development. This conceptual revolution was contingent, culturally specific, and importantly influenced by radical rereadings of Christian eschatology. Nonetheless, it created both the secular revolution of the 1960s, and the ideological framework within which the British secularization debate continues to be conducted today.

Conceptual Revolution

This chapter examines when a word’s meaning can change, criteria for conceptual change, and what has to happen for a word to change meanings. This chapter takes the view that the meaning of a term is fixed by language users having certain dispositions to use the term in certain ways. Consequently, meanings change—concepts shift—when the relevant dispositions change. After the view is articulated, it is put to use defending descriptivism from some recent objections. Finally, this chapter examines the extent to which terms really replace meanings at all—conceptual revolution—or just have their meanings and references change shape—conceptual evolution.

Paul and Philosophy

Taubes’s readings of Paul demonstrate a hermeneutical art of disagreement within the intellectual life of post-Holocaust Europe. Taubes is a reader who looks for intellectual enemies with whom he can achieve a true disagreement without dismissing their true insights, whether they are historical or philosophical. This hermeneutic is not unattached to Taubes’s Jewish background but reflects a Talmudic spirit inherent within Taubes’s idiosyncratic readings of Paul. Moreover, Taubes’s readings are attuned to nuances, ambivalences, and contradictions within Paul, as Taubes powerfully demonstrates in his exegesis of 1 Corinthians. With the help of Nietzsche’s polemical reading of this Pauline epistle, Taubes detects the instances where Paul’s doctrine of the cross revolutionizes ancient perceptions and passages that contain the power to neutralize this very same conceptual revolution. This results in Taubes’s image of a contradictory apostle, who can be used throughout history for various purposes. In Taubes’s case, Paul becomes a messianic thinker and part of Taubes’s efforts to establish a powerful synthesis of the insights of Walter Benjamin and Carl Schmitt—against what Taubes considers as the merely aesthetic tradition of “critical theory” in Theodor Adorno that remains indifferent to the historical struggles of the excluded.

Self-government of territorial communities and the Constitution — the search for consensus or a conceptual revolution?

The state begins a public discussion of amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine regarding decentralization of power. It is assumed that the system of local self-government and a new territorial organization of power will be consolidated, as well as the decentralization of power. The principles that are laid down in the text of the European Charter of Local Self-Government will also be introduced. These principles are basic for the implementation of an appropriate level of management and development of local self-government. Inadequate reproduction of the principles of the European Charter of Local Self-Government leads to the dependence of the institutions of local self-government, «second-rate» territorial communities and the declarative nature of municipal authorities, the growth of its dependence and accountability to public authorities. The existing legislative base of local self-government in Ukraine and the projects that were implemented in the field of formation and development of territorial communities are fragmented. Relevant is a comprehensive solution to the main problem of the organization and functioning of local self-government in modern Ukraine. Such is the creation of constitutional legal conditions for the formation of territorial communities as primary subjects of local self-government, the main carriers of its functions and powers. Different countries apply different management systems at the local level (within the respective administrative-territorial units), the choice of which is influenced by such factors as: state regime, form of government, different approach to understanding the essence and nature of state power, and delimitation of administrative-territorial units into «natural» and «artificial», national and historical features and traditions, and the like. Conclusion: the generally proposed position on replacing the term «territorial community» with «residents of the municipality», especially from the point of view of increasing the subjectivity of local authorities, should be considered an attempt at a conceptual upheaval of the constitutional legal understanding of the essence of local self-government in Ukraine. Key words: self-government of territorial communities, decentralization, local self-government, the Constitution.

Luc Boltanski’s pragmatic sociology: A Bourdieusian critique

Luc Boltanski’s programme of pragmatic sociology, now gaining substantial attention among English-speaking sociologists, was forged in opposition to the supposed excesses and blind spots of Pierre Bourdieu’s ‘critical sociology’. After outlining the main lines of development of Boltanski’s project and emphasizing the major points of difference with Bourdieu, the article offers a critical Bourdieusian response to pragmatic sociology. It highlights a number of ways in which Boltanski’s position is based on a misreading or distortion of Bourdieu’s ideas, is less unlike Bourdieu’s position than he claims and suffers from analytical shortcomings. This is not to say there is nothing of value in Boltanski’s work, but overall it offers useful pointers to be accommodated rather than a thoroughgoing conceptual revolution.

Going Radical

E-approaches to cognition—enactive, embodied, ecological—conceive of minds as fundamentally relational and interactive. They are often heralded as offering a new paradigm for thinking about the mental. Yet only the most radical versions of E-approaches—those that seek not to complement but to replace traditional cognitivist accounts of mind—have any prospect of ushering in a truly revolutionary rethink of the nature of cognition. This chapter considers whether such a conceptual revolution might really be in the cards. It identities the major options proposed by E-theorists, rating each in terms of degree of radicality. It reminds readers of the hard problem of content and reviews the range of options for handling it. It argues that “going radical” is one of the most attractive ways of dealing with the hard problem of content and that it is worth exploring the positive research program that going radical opens up.

Geology, philosophy of

In the mid-1960s, geology underwent a conceptual revolution. Prior to that time, most geologists believed that the continents and oceans were fixed and permanent, the basic features of the earth’s crust. Subsequently they came to agree that the earth was covered by rigid plates, thin in relation to the earth’s diameter, in which the continents were embedded like logs in icebergs. It was the creation, movement and destruction of these plates that were responsible for the mid-ocean ridges, the areas of mountain building and earthquake activity, and the deep ocean trenches. This conceptual revolution also marks a shift in the philosophy of geology. From the early nineteenth century, the chief philosophical question posed by geology was whether a historical science encountered special epistemic problems, a question that was usually answered by invoking the principle of uniformitarianism. In its strict form this stated that the only kind and intensities of causes that could be used to explain past geological phenomena were those that could be directly observed. Many sloppier formulations were invoked under the same name. Since the revolution, philosophers have turned to geology chiefly to use the revolution to exemplify or challenge one or another theory of scientific change.

Isotope Analytical Characterization of Carbon-Based Nanocomposites

ABSTRACTCarbon-based nanomaterials of different dimensions (1–3D, tubes, bundles, films, papers and sponges, graphene sheets) have been created and their characteristic properties have been discussed intensively in the literature. Due to their unique advantageous, tunable properties these materials became promising candidates in new generations of applications in many research laboratories and, recently, in industries as well. Protein-based bio-nanocomposites are referred to as materials of the future, which may serve as conceptual revolution in the development of integrated optical devices, e.g. optical switches, microimaging systems, sensors, telecommunication technologies or energy harvesting and biosensor applications. In our experiments, we designed various carbon-based nanomaterials either doped or not doped with nitrogen or sulfur during catalytic chemical vapor deposition synthesis. Radio- and isotope analytical studies have shown that the used starting materials, precursors and carriers have a strong influence on the geometry and physico-/chemical characteristics of the carbon nanotubes produced. After determining the 14C isotope constitution 53 m/m% balance was found in the reaction center protein/carbon nanotubes complex in a sensitive way that was prepared in our laboratory. The result is essential in determining the yield of conversion of light energy to chemical potential in this bio-hybrid system.

”Jeg sidder i toget” – Rumlighed i forandring

The article asks the question whether the term ‘spatial turn’ implies the same reference to a fundamental paradigmatic shift as Kant’s Copernican revolution or the ‘linguistic turn.’ The answer is no. The article considers the topical interest in spatiality as a more loose recontextualization of basic notions of time and space of a long standing, more in line with a gradual change of meaning from antiquity to the present than with a conceptual revolution