How (Not) to Be Secular is what Jamie Smith calls "your hitchhiker's guide to the present" -- it is both a reading guide to Charles Taylor's monumental work A Secular Age and philosophical guidance on how we might learn to live in our times. Taylor's landmark book A Secular Age (2007) provides a monumental, incisive analysis of what it means to live in the post-Christian present -- a pluralist world of competing beliefs and growing unbelief. Jamie Smith's book is a (...) compact field guide to Taylor's insightful study of the secular, making that very significant but daunting work accessible to a wide array of readers. Even more, though, Smith's How (Not) to Be Secular is a practical philosophical guidebook, a kind of how-to manual on how to live in our secular age. It ultimately offers us an adventure in self-understanding and maps out a way to get our bearings in today's secular culture, no matter who "we" are -- whether believers or skeptics, devout or doubting, self-assured or puzzled and confused. This is a book for any thinking person to chew on. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialtheorie und Philosophie Jahrgang: 4 Heft: 1-2 Seiten: 325-363.

The increasing cultural significance of the natural sciences presents conceptual history with the task of reorganising its categories and methods. The greatest challenge here is the merging of conceptual history and the history of science and the integration of the natural sciences in the project of an interdisciplinary cultural history. The present volume is the first to tackle this desideratum in a systematic manner. The contributions by renowned representatives of the most disparate disciplines bear witness both to the diversity of (...) the new perspectives and to the difficulties of such an undertaking. (shrink)

The concept of survival as an instrument for the politics of fear: the colonisation of everyday life in the discourses of nuclear warfare and ecology Resumen: El concepto de supervivencia funciona como una sonda guía en la historia de las emociones. La historia de la Modernidad puede relatarse como una generalización de situaciones de peligro; desde mediados del siglo xx, abarca a toda la sociedad. Este artículo se dedica a dos campos en los que se aplica el concepto de supervivencia (...) y que son a su vez constitutivos de este proceso totalizador, a saber, los discursos sobre la guerra nuclear y sobre la ecología. En ambos la supervivencia juega un papel central a la hora de reflexionar y politizar históricamente los nuevos peligros que resultan del desarrollo de las nuevas tecnologías y de las consecuencias derivadas del crecimiento de la economía capitalista.: The concept of survival functions as a guiding probe in the history of emotions. The history of modernity can be recounted as a generalization of situations of danger; since the middle of the 20th century, it has encompassed the whole of society. This article is devoted to two fields in which the concept of survival is applied and which are themselves constitutive of this totalizing process, namely the discourses on nuclear war and on ecology. In both, survival plays a central role in the historical reflection and politicization of the new dangers resulting from the development of new technologies and the consequences of the growth of the capitalist economy. Palabras clave: supervivencia, Guerra atómica, ecología, capitalismo, crisis climática, apocalipsis. Keywords: survival, nuclear war, ecology, capitalism, climatic crisis, apocalypse. (shrink)

The essay analyzes the transformation of the metaphor »real experiment« (Realexperiment) as part of a critical theory of modernity into an instrument for empirical research and pragmatic problem solving. This transformation has come at a cost. I argue that in the wake of its systematization the concept of the real experiment has lost the ability to engage with certain types of problems. Given this detrimental shift, it becomes all the more important to rediscover the term’s older layers of meaning and (...) how they might be useful in confronting current experiences of how history tends towards autonomization. (shrink)

The essay analyzes the transformation of the metaphor »real experiment« (Realexperiment) as part of a critical theory of modernity into an instrument for empirical research and pragmatic problem solving. This transformation has come at a cost. I argue that in the wake of its systematization the concept of the real experiment has lost the ability to engage with certain types of problems. Given this detrimental shift, it becomes all the more important to rediscover the term’s older layers of meaning and (...) how they might be useful in confronting current experiences of how history tends towards autonomization. (shrink)

This article is intended to contribute to the discussion of the topicality and historical and theoretical limitations of Koselleck’s theory. The concept of acceleration, which has a special meaning for Koselleck, both in terms of conceptual history and social theory, will serve as a guide to this investigation. Since it is a socio- and temporal-analytical concept, the current thesis, that we have entered a post-Koselleckian culture, should be amenable to testing on the basis of this concept, which this article will (...) consider in some detail. The examination is divided into three parts: The first part addresses the concept of acceleration and its implications for Koselleck. On the basis of the results of the first part, the second part discusses issues and problems that go beyond Koselleck’s approach, and/or show it’s theoretical or methodological limits. Finally, the third part summarizes the conclusions of the foregoing examination, and emphasizes the problem-historical continuity with Koselleck’s inquiry into a socio-historically informed history of concepts. (shrink)

The article undertakes a reconstruction of the historical changes in the understanding of the term »projection«. The analysis begins with a consideration of the current discussion about the problem why the term was suddenly employed as a category of religious criticism in the middle of the 19th century. The article makes clear, that the existing literature has not satisfactory clarified the problem. Afterwards, by means of a reconstruction of the historical development of the term »projection«, the author undertakes to elucidate (...) the question, seeking to lay a new foundation for the discussion. The article concludes that the radical changes in the understanding of the term »projection« only can be understood properly in the light of the drastic historical changes in cultural perception and media. (shrink)

Practical deliberation often involves conditional judgements about what will (likely) happen if certain alternatives are pursued. It is widely assumed that the conditionals useful in deliberation are counterfactual or subjunctive conditionals. Against this, I argue that the conditionals of deliberation are indicatives. Key to the argument is an account of the relation between 'straightforward' future-directed conditionals like ' If the house is not painted, it will soon look quite shabby' and * "w e r e ' ' e d F (...) D C s like ' If the house were not to be painted, it would soon look quite shabby': an account on which both of these types of FDCs are grouped with the indicatives for semantic treatment and on which, while conditionals of both types are properly used in means/ends deliberations, those of the ' were'ed-up variety are especially well suited for that purpose. (shrink)

This article explores the enduring mysteries of consciousness and the afterlife, two enigmatic topics that have fascinated humanity for ages. Despite extensive scientific efforts, the existence of an afterlife remains unproven, and understanding consciousness remains a significant challenge. The research introduces innovative hypotheses through simple thought experiments with empirical evidence and robust theoretical foundations. It delves into the complexities of consciousness, its relationship with the brain, and the need for interdisciplinary approaches encompassing physics, psychology, and philosophy. Boldly contemplating the probability (...) of a continuous consciousness after death, the study argues that existing evidence strongly supports this idea. Beyond theoretical implications, it envisions practical outcomes, suggesting that insights into these mysteries could enhance human well-being and contribute to a more harmonious world. In summary, this article embarks on a quest to shed light on age-old questions about consciousness and the afterlife. Through fresh methodologies, it aims to provide new perspectives that could reshape our understanding of existence and inspire intellectuals to positive individual and societal advancements. -/- . (shrink)