-
Chapter
The Ontology of Escalation
The synthetic, normative, and naturalistic metaphysics of analytic philosophy hinges on an ontology that lays bare the property common to all being and yet differing in the infinitely many different things. Su...
-
Chapter
Libertarismus und Armut
Die englische Wikipedia erklärt ihn als »a collection of political philosophies and movements that uphold liberty as a core principle.« Doch diese Beschreibung trifft auch auf den Liberalismus zu. Den Libertar...
-
Chapter
Why Naturalistic Metaphysics Is Needed
Analytic philosophy started as an anti-metaphysical project, yet has become a strong advocate of metaphysics. Against appearances, this development is not inconsistent with its beginnings. But to conform with ...
-
Chapter
Practical Conclusions
If metaphysics is as foundational as its adherents claim it is, and if it is normative, as I claim the founding fathers of analytic philosophy implied it is, then the ontology of escalation, being normative, s...
-
Chapter
Introduction
These two sections introduce you to the topic and the procedure of the book.
-
Chapter
Hegel’s Sittlichkeit
Though Hegel historicizes morality, he finds a normative absolute in what he calls the absolute right of the world spirit, the spirit of the most advanced and most powerful society. As we can only retrospectiv...
-
Chapter
Reflections
Our three authors share the idea that rationality or what Hegel the sociologist and Heidegger consider its core, authenticity, is unconditionally obliging because rejecting it entails losing what makes us spec...
-
Chapter
Kant’s Vernünftigkeit
Kant’s absolute, the Categorical Imperative, commands acting only on universalizable reasons, reasons everyone can act on without entailing self-contradiction or collective self-destruction. He argues it is re...
-
Chapter
Heidegger’s Eigentlichkeit
Kant and Hegel found an absolute value in rationality: in acting on universalizable reasons and in obeying the world spirit or the spheres of objective and absolute spirit. Heidegger rejects this conception of...
-
Chapter
Begegnungen mit Hans Albert
Ich sah Hans Albert zum ersten Mal im Jahre 1968. Harald Delius, dessen Assistent an der Universität Mannheim ich war, hatte mir Alberts Traktat über kritische Vernunft empfohlen, der gerade erschienen war. Ich w...
-
Chapter
Moral and Metaphysical Norms
What is meant by authenticity? In ordinary life, authenticity is a nebulous concept (Vannini 2006:236; Waskul 2009:58), and “rather irrelevant to self and society”, as Waskul (2009:58) claims?
-
Chapter
Weberian Rationalization Is a Hegelian Red Herring
So far my objections have attacked my claims that secularization perfects religion and that its perfection consists in finding the absolute in fallible authenticity.
-
Chapter
Montaigne’s Authenticity
On his 38th birthday in 1571, retired from his career as a lawyer of the parlement of Bordeaux, “tired of the burdens of Parliament and public duties,” but “in full vigor,” to dedicate the days left him “to his...
-
Chapter
Secular Societies Can Do Without Anything Absolute
In my discussion of Kierkegaard, I assumed that there is a place and even a need for something absolute in secular societies, even though the absolute can no longer be conceived as something transcendent beyon...
-
Chapter
Rorty and the Enlightened Secular Faith
Rorty is a remarkable champion of the traditional understanding of secularization. He wrongly appealed (as I remarked in a note in Chap. 16) to Nietzsche as a fellow-campaigner for his claim that “there is no ...
-
Chapter
A Naturalistic Proof of the Validity of the Authenticity Command
modern science threatens the possibility of normativity. Indeed, if everything results from laws and initial conditions then there is no place for something we ought to do. presupposes , and , Kant bel...
-
Chapter
Secularization Is a Western Affair
A last objection, I have presupposed that secularization is a tendency of religion ready to materialize in all societies. Secularization, I have implied, needs favorable conditions and whether they arise depen...
-
Chapter
Applying the Idea of Solidarity to Europe
The chapter by Ulrich Steinvorth deals with the application of the concept of solidarity to Europe. He starts by analysing solidarity as a virtue, considering individuals who have similar goals, are on the sam...
-
Chapter
Comparable Interpretations of Secularization
My theses contradict popular views. Orthodoxy has it that secularization dissolved religion, that religion is nothing to be perfected, and that authenticity is an idea that developed only in the nineteenth cen...
-
Chapter
Thesis and Sub-theses
I can come back now to secularization and formulate my claims in a form that may be criticized better.
