NATURALIZING CHRISTIAN ETHICS: A Critique of Charles Taylor's A Secular Age
This essay critically engages the concept of transcendence in Charles Taylor's A Secular Age. I explore his definition of transcendence, its role in holding a modernity-inspired nihilism at bay, and how it is crucial to the Christian antihumanist argument that he makes. In the process, I show h...
Auteur principal: | |
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Type de support: | Électronique Article |
Langue: | Anglais |
Vérifier la disponibilité: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Publié: |
Wiley-Blackwell
2012
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Dans: |
Journal of religious ethics
Année: 2012, Volume: 40, Numéro: 1, Pages: 149-170 |
Sujets non-standardisés: | B
Secular
B Transcendence B Naturalism B God B Humanism B Nihilism |
Accès en ligne: |
Accès probablement gratuit Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
Résumé: | This essay critically engages the concept of transcendence in Charles Taylor's A Secular Age. I explore his definition of transcendence, its role in holding a modernity-inspired nihilism at bay, and how it is crucial to the Christian antihumanist argument that he makes. In the process, I show how the critical power of this analysis depends heavily and paradoxically on the Nietzschean antihumanism that he otherwise rejects. Through an account of what I describe as naturalistic Christianity, I argue that transcendence need not be construed as supernatural, that all of the resources necessary for a meaningful life are immanent in the natural process, which includes the semiotic capacities of Homo sapiens. Finally, I triangulate Taylor's supernatural account of transcendence, naturalistic Christianity, and Dreyfus and Kelly's physis-based account of “going beyond” our normal normality in All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics for Meaning in a Secular Age. |
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ISSN: | 1467-9795 |
Contient: | Enthalten in: Journal of religious ethics
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9795.2011.00513.x |