Tóth János Similarities and Differences in Perennial and Post-Secular Approaches to Society Abstract: Issues of the truth potential of religions and its alleged incompatibility with scientific objectivity are among the questions that cannot be bypassed in discourses aiming to an integral understanding of society. In this paper, we will examine and compare two specific approaches that share the intention of taking into consideration religious truths when describing and criticising both modern societies and methods permitting their scientific examination within the academic field. As perennialism focuses on common metaphysical truth shared by all religions, and post-secularism deals with a possible form of cooperation between secular and religious morality, it is expected to find that their offered solutions to social crisis phenomena will be essentially different. However, the results show that basically both see the solution as a reorganizational task. Keywords: Perennialism, post-secularism, society, social crisis, scientific objectivity The Fundamental Question In recent decades, scientific opinions about the presence of religious ideas in society and politics have been radically reassessed, which, in turn, undermined the interpretation of religion as „a private matter" (Luckman, 1967: 94). One of the central components of the reassessment process is the recognition of the truth potential of religion and religious values. Another question is how this conviction of their truth potential is compatible with scientific objectivity, a classical debate which had a non-negligible effect on a special segment of the social public sphere, namely: academic knowledge. Taking into consideration that religious ideas and values participate in a significantly different, i.e. „foreign" public sphere from the one they did in the ages before the separation of state and Church, in this paper I would like to concentrate on the following question: to what extent 114 could the identity of these ideas and values be preserved in its reconciliation with scientific objectivity? For this examination I have selected two different approaches to social crises. The first of them is the perennial approach, which can be connected to such names as René Guénon, Frithjof Schuon, Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy, Titus Burckhardt, and Martin Lings, or more recently, with more potential of academic objectivity, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Rodney Blackhirst, Harry Oldmeadow, and Patrick Laude. The second is the post-secular approach, as identified, for example, with the work of Jürgen Habermas, Maeve Coke, and Christina Lafont. The reason for this choice is that while the former approach interprets religious truths as an expression of „absolute" metaphysical truths in themselves, the latter makes the subject of its research the social utility of religious truths exclusively from a humanist and rationalist point of view. Another reason for the choice is the fact that the social view of perennialism for the first look – similarly to other religious and ideological approaches – does not meet the criteria of an unbiased and value-free approach. However, it is also easily detectable in the post-secular approach that in the interaction of religious and secular citizens, there exists an attempt for a normative construction of knowledge which is not restricted to the description and critique of phenomena (as things are) but above this, correct actions are designated (as things should be). For this reason, in both cases, it occurs to the writer that despite their objectivation in the Bourdieuian sense, neither can be regarded as a scientifically objective approach. The Problem of Scientific Objectivity and the Objectivity of the Subject For reasons of length, this study does not allow for a detailed examination of the objectivity of social sciences. However, two observations can be made even without a detailed analysis. The first is in C.W. Mills's words, that „the social scientist at work is not suddenly confronted with the need to choose values. He is already working on the basis of certain values." (1959, 178), which can be interpreted in the following way: inside social sciences, the set of value choices is determined by super-values, coded into generally accepted „scientific" approaches. However, it can be put in a more generic way, as it is hard to debate that every thought, observation, and description is determined by a priori values, and for this reason, the realization of an absolutely idealized „value-free" science would be committed to the special value of value-free-ness. The second observation is that al115 though several researchers have already attempted to deal with the problem of a value-free science (a few among them for example are Florian Znaniecki, Pitirim A. Sorokin, Alwin W. Gouldner, Robert A. Nisbet, and Irving L. Horowitz), „It is not that the relevant arguments articulated by this minority have been answered. Rather, they generally have been ignored" (Gray 1968: 176). This situation, which has not changed significantly to our days, can be explained with the characteristic of power discourses. However, such an explanation will not point at the solution of the problem, only at its discursive illegitimacy, which lends a degree of incoherence even to the basic texts of social sciences, as objectivity and its criteria did not mean even in classical sociology that the „social" aspect was dealt with without previous assumptions. Auguste Comte sided with „mere" empiricism – where he deems empirical research which is conducted in the absence of theory unscientific1 – which is in harmony with Max Weber's statements that „no science is absolutely free from presuppositions" (1991: 153) and „an attitude of moral indifference [Gesinnungslosigkeit] has no connection with scientific 'objectivity'" (2011: 60). Weber's criteria for the objectivity of empirical knowledge are that the effects of the scientist's previous assumptions and convictions can be and are made predictable, and, as a result, the interpretation of scientific facts is not mixed with evaluative discussion. The thought ordering of empirical reality along subjective categories denies neither a priori assumptions nor the fact that observed phenomena can have other aspects than social, which can also be researched according to their patterns of regularity and even according to scientific demands. At the same time, it states, showing the characteristics of an ideology critique that scientific knowledge is not compatible with normative knowledge, which aims at the identification of criteria needed for successful life management.2 The formation of a value-free and non-normative sociology makes the values that social scientists hold irrelevant from a scientific point of view and excludes both „viable social philosophies" and research for better forms of human organization from the field of sociology (Warburton 1977: 91). 1 As Comte (2009) wrote, „No logical dogma could be more thoroughly irreconcilable with the spirit of the positive philosophy, or with its special character in regard to the study of social phenomena, than this [empiricism]", „which is introduced into it [observation] by those who, in the name of impartiality, would interdict the use of any theory whatever" (474). 2 The difference between a normative and an existential form of knowledge can lead to several questions, e.g about the objectivity of a Marxist or Durkheimian sociology, as the concepts concerning logic and objectivity can be radically different, for example, as in logical positivism and in the Peircian normative logic. 116 At the same time, Habermas (1973) recognized that the positivist struggle against dogmatism is only possible in a form of science which reflects only on itself and wills itself as an end, that is, it shows exactly the characteristics of that kind of dedicated rationality3 which he rejects (268). As long as theoretical commitment to rationality does not prevent the scientific nature of a discipline, logically theoretical commitments to postulates of a different type (e.g. theological or transcendental) cannot be in themselves obstacles to the scientific nature of a discipline either. The question of objectivity follows only after that, and for exactly this reason – because of different postulates – the criteria of the various commitments will not overlap. The sociological relevance of religious truths viewed in the light of the criteria required by scientific objectivity meets the difficulty, as an example, that religious teachings do not trace back fact statements about the world to observations, instead they formulate the general laws of the world in accordance with divine revelations. This difference, however, is a consequence of theological postulates, and thus, the difficulty does not imply the incoherence of „thought ordering" but only that statements formed via scientific observations are coherent with a different type of commitment. According to this, the objectivity of religious truths can be described as a special type of „subjective objectivity" in the same way as the objectivity of social sciences. The difference between the two is that the former is always the objectivity of the unique and supreme Subject, who can claim „objectivity" through an order and law of objectivation as Being, and not according to the logical control researchers practise over their individual viewpoints when they arrange the examination of individual items. The answer to the question which of these two options can be accepted in a given discourse universe as fact depends on the power logic inside and the positions of their agents. In our opinion, a study of perennialist and post-secular approaches to society and their comparison makes it possible to explore the history of discursive skirmishes along this power logic: the surfacing of a problem, namely, whether the truth potential of religion or religious values can be accepted scientifically, gives us an opportunity to reconsider the components of the problem. 3 Earlier, Polányi (1950) has also pointed out this self-referential paradox in connection with the enlightened-superstitious opposition (76). 117 The Starting Point of Reconsideration The novelty in a reconsideration of this type can be a result of the re-structuralization of current commitments, the extension of their scope, or both. Another consequence can be that the thinking agent selects a new object while the fact of commitment to the object cannot be eliminated. The latter is more complicated because it cannot be excluded that the reconsideration of components constituting the problem may not happen according to the paradigms recognized and accepted by the academia but for example according to those of theological tradition, or in a way which is compatible with that tradition. Thus, when we are examining how phenomena and the relationship between them get objectivized in science, we also have to look into the question what doctrines these concepts fit in and what tradition they are based on. Doctrines and schools of thought are of various types, and are different not only in the degree of their institutionalization or in their methods of passing their knowledge to the next generation, but very often the phenomena they examine are also interpreted as the revelation of a different basic characteristic. This is basically equivalent to the statement that it is always the doctrine that determines the object of examination and the questions that can be asked about it, and, to a certain extent, the range of possible results and conclusions.4 This is true for theology as well as for the constitutive models of social sciences, where groups of phenomena, as possible objects of study, are „offered„ in their empirical connectedness to experience (Foucault 1966: 368). From this, however, it cannot be concluded that a theological reconsideration of the facts makes it automatically irrelevant from the viewpoint of social sciences; this can be stated or denied only after the comparison of concepts. Taking into consideration the results of Christian social thought, the claim may also seem justified that some elements and relationships of society can be re-considered with theological commitment in a way that they may remain easily manageable by the means of interdisciplinary social sciences. The questions above are worthy of special attention when examining society because what has been attributed by the post-secular approach to the incompatibility of the organizing principles of globality with human environment – an issue inseparable from social justice – has been attempted 4 To illustrate this point, it is enough to think of how the meaning of „human" has changed according its interpretation inside the bounds of systems of thought in the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Enlightenment, or for that matter, in transand post-humanist thought. Moreover, the definitions and interpretations are often exclusive of each other. 118 to handle until recently mainly by secular types of knowledge within the academic field, without any regard to the so-called „religious truths". Although western theology has made several attempts in late modernity, at the recognition of the results of secular science (a controversial gesture), the same cannot be said of the academia as a group: it has made no attempt to benefit from the study of theology (Yarnold 1959: 54). On the part of social sciences an early recognition of the principle that „no science can prove its fundamental value to the person who rejects these [its] presuppositions„ (Weber 1991: 153) surely contributed to this situation. It is only since the turn of the millennium that alternatives to the preservation of the status quo have strengthened. These alternatives converge – which occasionally seem to originate from inside the hermeneutical horizon of religions – in that respect that they no longer observe religion's role in social and attitudinal organization through a sociological filter, but under the sign of dialogue and mutual understanding, regarding the academic and scientific value of possible conclusions as potentially equivalent. In political philosophy, some of these approaches refer to post-secular society, where the „post„ prefix means that it has abandoned the „militant secularism„ (Braeckman 2009: 280) of its modern precursor and, furthermore, it does not insist on the categorization of religion as a private matter but leaves space to its more emphatic appearance in the public sphere. On the other hand, there are areas – not necessarily in the geographical sense –, where the Western type of science, based on logical positivism and empiricism has not become a dominant factor in the explanation of the world, and in this way they not only lack a quasi-exclusive position but neither are their role significant in the organization of human coexistence, or in determining the criteria for „scientific" knowledge. The non-Westernized part of the Islamic world belongs here, or sciences with „sacral„ foundations which no longer belong – or never belonged – to the scientific culture of the West. In these areas, the question never arises how to reconcile the religious and the secular, or the traditional and postmodern mentality, as it is not a problem either, whether they should attempt, from inside the society, to adopt nonsecular values or interpretations to correct particular social anomalies. The emphasis in these areas, where perennialism also belongs, is rather on the uncompromised rejection of secularism and the modern world in general. The post-secular and perennialist approaches, therefore, interpret the relevance of religious truths rather differently, partly because in their particular thought contexts the referents or the terms „so119 ciety„ and „religious truth„ also differ. The following section will attempt to give an overview of the most important elements of difference. Society from Two Perspectives For a modern society, the first thing to be emphasized is that while the researchers are examining the meaning of a concept they also need to identify the referent, implicitly or explicitly, depending on whether they regard the meaning and the reference identical or different. Even if it is customary in problem-centred researches to emphasize particular aspects of society depending on their relevance to a solution and to marginalize or ignore other aspects, an etymological research of what the term „society" refers to can be taken as a basis and can be normative for later meaning variants. As here we would like to concentrate on the first phenomenon it was applied to signify, we would like to go back to the basics of the relationship between the sign and the signified, to the circumstances in which it was born, and then, following that, we can concentrate, as the need arises, on various geographical and political spheres, or later ages, where further variants of meaning developed. From a historical point of view, „society", that is, the French word societé originally meant more of an economy-type of companionship. At the same time, based on the evolution of concepts like „société", „social", „sociabilité", etc. (see Baker 1994: 95–121, esp. 98–108 and Mintzker 2008: 500–513 passim.), it can be claimed that „societé" was used even before the Enlightenment to signify natural human companionship of mutual dependence. For an example we can quote from the dictionaries edited by César de Rochefort and Antoine Furetière written in 1685 and 1690, respectively: the human „is not perfect enough to be independent, but is not so imperfect either to be incapable of conversation. For this reason was he born with the commitment and relationship so there is no way he can exist in the world without participating in a kind of family or a republic. In other words, as a social and civil animal, he needs to have lots of things in common with all the individuals of his species, and more with whom he lives in the same country, and even more with whom he belongs to the same family. [n'eƒt pas 120 aƒƒez parfait pour eƒtre independant, il n' eƒt pas auƒƒi si imparfait qu'il ƒoit incapable de converƒation; C'eƒt pourquoy il naiƒt avec cette obligation & ce rapport qu'il ne peut eƒtre en nulle part de monde ƒans eƒtre une partie de quelque famille ou quelque Republique: Or en qualité d' animale ƒociable & civil, il eƒt neceƒƒaire qu'il ait beaucoup de choƒes communes avec tous les individus de ƒon eƒpéce & encore plus avec ceux de ƒon païs & bien plus encore avec ceux de ƒa maiƒon.] (Rochefort 1685: 692). Later, he writes: „It is only God's state that is sufficient in itself, and that of the beast, which is incapable of speech and, being mute and ignorant, is unable to communicate – both are outside the bounds of all kinds of society and community: God does not need society, and the beast is incapable of it." [Il n'y a que le condition de Dieu qui ƒeul ƒuƒƒit à ƒoy-meime, & la condition de la beƒte qui pour etre mueƒte & ignorante ne peut communiquer ils ƒont tous deux, hors des liens de tout ƒocieté & communauté: Dieu n'a pas beƒoin de ƒocieté & la beƒte n'en eƒt pas capable.] (ibid., 692). „Society" is defined in the entry above as made up of people and of the conversation networks between them, so society has been defined in a way that it does not include either God or the natural world, furthermore, society itself is not a part of those either. This definition was not formed through some restriction of a former category but by a formerly unprecedented naming of a specific coexistence as „society". Although it can be rightfully said that the societies and society-concepts of the Enlightenment significantly differ from those of today, the discussable differences are not, in my opinion, in changes in the principles above but in its sphere of validity, in its being extended to new areas, and through this extension, in an increased number of focus points. Regarding these principles, a perennialist concept of society is basically constative and not constitutive. It is not a construction in the postmodern sense but a conformity to narratives of various historical-causal chains of handing down traditions, inside the framework of which it can be stated what society is in essence and how it does not fit into the Divine order, and does not merely make available statements on what constitutes the examined object and how it functions. Here, on the one hand, a perennialist approach to society takes into consideration religious truths, but does it in 121 a way that at the same time it regards them as an expression of the meta-narrative of a „primordial tradition" in that particular religious language and system of symbols, laws, and rites. On the other hand, based on these truths, it relates to modern society as to an anti-traditional, godless organization, which necessarily draws upon itself a rejection of its „rebellious" spirituality, where the coexistence of humans has been attempted through a break with the divine, and via the maintenance of this separation. This, however, does not mean that perennialism rejects every form of human coexistence. Perennialism puts a clear emphasis on the primacy of the individual when it is for spiritual realization. The turn towards the Self – that is, to the Absolute Subject – always starts on the individual level, where it requires a special activity on the part of the individual, besides which it also postulates that the individual can only be a fragmentary reflection of the Self. For reasons of self-correction, the individual needs to be united with his/her fellow human beings, on the one hand to remind themselves of their fragmentary nature (multitude in oneness), and on the other hand, as a communal act of fitting oneself into a divine cosmic order (unity in multitude), which includes both keeping in touch with other individuals and turning towards God together with other individuals. From the perennialist perspective, positive and appreciative statements can be made about forms of coexistence fulfilling the criteria mentioned above, for example, about congregations, monastic communities, classical teacher-disciple relationships, and in general about any affectionate connection between people in a narrower or broader sense. However, in general, the concepts used by perennialism to describe the different types of human coexistence show an inconsistency which leads to problems in cases when their relevance to social sciences is examined. Social development, as it can be seen in the light of the early usage of the term, is strongly connected to the results of an unfolding secularism, but this stage of development could not be reached while the organising power of religion covered every aspect of human existence. Thus, the special mode of coexistence we can call „society" was absolutely unknown to people of yore. Despite this, archaic ways of coexistence are quite commonly referred to in perennialist texts as „sacral society", „religious society", or perhaps „traditional society" – as an example, see Coomaraswamy (2005: 141, 2011: 25 and 70); Lakhani (2010: 13 and 190); Schuon (2006: 101) and Stoddart (2008: 100) –, which shows that perennialism 122 actually uses a modern concept signifying a level of godless organization to speak about modes of coexistence which cannot be furthest from that.5 This may be problematic for various reasons. Firstly, based on the guidelines of conceptual clarity it can be a requirement in science that different phenomena or their groups should not be categorized under the same name. The principles forming and maintaining societies by definition are human constructs, in their aims, norms, values, desires, faiths and beliefs, for which reason their organization is significantly different from that of religious communities, which are postulated as god-centred and maintained by divine providence. On the conceptual horizon of society, the existential difference between these two modes of coexistence may remain hidden from researchers, as society itself is also a mode of coexistence of special quality. And as the difference remains hidden, it will be impossible to distinguish between them according to their essence, only by their structure and function: with one mode of coexistence having god-based organizational principles (conforming to various revelations or to sacral laws) and with the other one not god-based, which, if researchers want to proceed in a coherent manner, is not acceptable because the term is reductive: it does not say that human coexistence has this and that (social and communal) modes, but that one mode of coexistence (society) has different qualities (traditional, religious, modern, global, etc.). The other problem is that according to the perennialist thought, there is really no thing that is profane, there is only a profane point of view (Guénon 2001: 53), which means that although the viewpoint can be called profane – not in its own right but by opposing the transcendent and the sacral – due to its opposition as a distinguishing feature, the realization of the „profane" will not be so profane but untraditional instead, it will not be something new but a degradation of something. Thus, when perennialism uses the name „society" to denote a godless mode of coexistence according to its own logic, it refers to a deteriorated sacral community, the organizational principle of which is the negation of those of sacral communities. This way, the difference is not between the duality of traditional and modern societies, but of traditional and deteriorated sacral communities; the latter of which can be called society because of this deterioration. These differences are dif5 The interpretation of archaic and modern modes of coexistence as „societies" of different quality can be seen in the following extract „Guénon also stressed that any traditional society , such as still survived in the East, is oriented to spiritual ends whilst any anti-traditional society, found everywhere in the modern West is necessarily governed by values inimical to our spiritual warfare" (Oldmeadow 2007, ix). 123 ficult to perceive if we speak of both traditional-religious and modern-global modes of coexistence as society. It is necessary to highlight the polysemy of the applied concepts because their use may reach a degree of obscurity where the identification of the entity they signify becomes difficult or impossible and this clarification will be necessary in the examination of the concept of religion of the post-secular discourse. A post-secular approach to society is not constative but constitutive: it does not reject society for its secularity, but does not speak about religious society either, instead, it wants to find a solution to a social crisis of society by drawing attention to the necessity of integrating some religious values into society. Let us have a look at what Habermas thinks of this cooperation: He does not simply state that religion has the right to spell out some truths, but also describes what consequence this will bring into the interaction of religious and secular citizens: „The expectation that there will be continuing disagreement between faith and knowledge deserves to be called 'rational' only when secular knowledge, too, grants that religious convictions have an epistemological status that is not purely and simply irrational. And this is why, in the public political arena, naturalistic world views, which owe their genesis to a speculative assimilation of scientific information and are relevant to the ethical understanding of the citizens, do not in the least enjoy a prima facie advantage over competing world views or religious understandings. The neutrality of the state authority on questions of world views guarantees the same ethical freedom for every citizen. This is incompatible with the political universalisation of a secularist world view. When secularized citizens act in their role as citizens of the state, they must not deny in principle that religious images of the world have the potential to express truth. Nor must they refuse their believing fellow citizens the right to make contributions in a religious language to public debates. Indeed, a liberal political culture can expect that the secularized citizens play their part in the endeavours to translate relevant contributions from the religious language into a language that is accessible to the public as a whole" (Habermas–Ratzinger 2006: 50–52). 124 The extract above can be interpreted as if Habermas could accept, both epistemologically („have an epistemological status that is not purely and simply irrational") and gnoseologically („must not deny in principle that religious images of the world have the potential to express truth"), the restoration of religious truths into the status which they enjoyed in the better part of history and later he describes its cultural, political, legal, and moral implications. Habermas's concept of religion is worth a detailed inspection, however, in order to understand what he means when he says that the secular citizen should not question the truth potential of religious worldview. As Habermas examines the question primarily from a humanist's point of view, for him, the truth potential of religion is not a temporal appearance of metaphysical truths but the presence of moral truths in religion which, for some reason, are absent from secular society. And as they are absent, he is worried that certain aspects of cultural tradition – moral intuitions originating in religious tradition (2005: 137) – which had attained significant success in handling societal pathology and individual tragedies in the religious universe, have become forgotten over time. We will not go into an examination whether his fears are well-founded or not, but will be satisfied with the conclusion that his train of thought does not handle religious truths in the same anthropological and ontological dimension as religion does. He moves on a plane where these truths are accessible to the rational mind, and standing on which human rationality constructs a humanist reality, separate from the transcendent. Habermas's position, although rejecting several postulates of the Enlightenment on religion, is still „enlightened" in the sense that he assumes that moral truths are norms governing individual and social interests; while from a religious point of view humanist morality is a secularized remainder of a true religious lifestyle. From this, it can be seen that when Habermas speaks about the truth potential of religion he does so inside the framework of a special (reductionist) rational reconstruction, the main result of which is that he introduces the reconstructed into the discourses of social science where a well-developed logical system and toolkit are available for its analysis. The aforementioned can be interpreted in the following way in respect of the role of religion: What conditions must be fulfilled so that religions might contribute to the social stability of liberal states and to the consolidation of their „moral foundations"? In his response, Habermas does not commit himself either to the exclusivist or to the inclusivist standpoint6 but develops a solution which blurs the bound6 The „exclusivist" and „inclusivist" approaches here refer to the appearance of the freedom of religion in the public sphere. The former approach allows for the support of a standpoint by religious argumentation in public speech only if non-religious arguments are also listed to support the argument. The inclusivist standpoint also allows for religious arguments in public speech but without the former limitation. 125 ary between a religious and a secular line of argumentation: According to the post-secular approach, religion can only contribute to the formation of public will and opinion in a way which is acceptable to the secular state, and if religious people accept certain premises of attitude when relating to the secular and if they select their arguments along these premises. The desirable attitudes in Habermas's way of thinking are not merely about religious tolerance – with modernist overtones – (2005: 252), and we can add, rightly so: for religious tolerance, take it as „perseverance" or „patience", is not value-neutral to the object of tolerance. A lot more is in question: The religious conscience, says Habermas (2001), „must accede to the authority of science, which holds a social monopoly on knowledge. Finally, it must participate in the premises of a constitutional state, which is based on a non-sacred concept of morality. Without this reflective 'thrust', monotheisms within ruthlessly modernizing societies develop a destructive potential" (para.13). In such circumstances, „acceptance" presupposes not only the equality of profane morality and religious truths as organising principles of coexistence, because what can be required, according to Habermas (2005), is a positive and successive relationship7 on the part of the believer between religious ethics and secular morality (269), which can explain to a secular citizen the absurdity of claiming a morality on religious foundations irrational (114–115). By establishing this common ground between religious and secular morality, believers also need to accept the secular characteristics of society. But which are these characteristics? On the one hand, the diversity of thought, that is, a worldview constructed from one point of view will never belong to everyone, and therefore, it is neither ethical nor rational to try to achieve the opposite (Braeckman 2009: 282). On the other hand, the acceptance of a state the foundations of which lie on non-sacral morality, and the social monopoly of modern science concerning the production of knowledge, which was already touched upon in an earlier quotation. 7 It would be difficult to ignore the similarity between this train of thought and the one that leads to the Kantian definition of enlightenment. 126 Conclusion As a conclusion, it can be said that there is a common intention in both the perennialist and the post-secular approach in taking into consideration religious truths and consequently, in strongly criticising modern society. Further common ground is that religious truths are justified not in the context of particular forms of religion. 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