A secular wonder

In George Levine (ed.), The Joy of Secularism: 11 Essays for How We Live Now. Princeton University Press (2011)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

What is it like to be an earthly, worldly, “secular” creature? Is it a blessing or is it a curse? During the last two centuries, this question has generally been answered with an appeal to disengagedness and objectivity, that is, to an indisputable “scientific” representation of the whole of “reality.” The world then seems to serve as a justification, through the “facts of the matter,” of the superiority of optimism or pessimism. On the contrary, I want in this essay to show that, in order to argue convincingly about our basic attitudes towards the world and the reasons pro or con for them (if we have any reasons at all), we do not have to insist on disinterest; we need, rather, to move toward primary and apparently objectless emotions, of the kind that are called Stimmungen in German. In other words, we need an epistemology of basic existential moods. In particular, I examine, out of many possible, one basic attitude toward world – the readiness to be surprised or amazed by things or events – on the hypothesis that one of the preconditions for feeling at home in the world has to be sought exactly here.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 101,667

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

6. A Secular Wonder.Paolo Costa - 2011 - In George Levine (ed.), The Joy of Secularism: 11 Essays for How We Live Now. Princeton University Press. pp. 134-154.
Modal Intensionalism.Craig Warmke - 2015 - Journal of Philosophy 112 (6):309-334.
The Wonder and the Terror of Getting Lost in “The Room”.Brian Hisao Onishi - 2024 - Studia Philosophica Wratislaviensia 18 (4):43-61.
A relational theory of non-propositional attitudes.Alex Grzankowski - 2018 - In Alex Grzankowski & Michelle Montague (eds.), Non-Propositional Intentionality. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
Pessimism.George W. Harris - 2002 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 5 (3):271-286.

Analytics

Added to PP
2012-10-10

Downloads
47 (#473,047)

6 months
2 (#1,691,363)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references