The Disenchantment of the World: A Political History of Religion: A Political History of Religion

254 Pages·1997·15.988 MB·English

by  Marcel Gauchet

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SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY AT CLAREMONT |
Marcel Gauchet
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DISENCHANTMENT
OF THE WORLD
A Political History
of Religion
Translated by Oscar Burge
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The Disenchantment of the World
NEW FRENCH THOUGHT
Serms Errors
Thomas Pavel and Mark Lilla
TITLES IN THE SERIES
Mark Lilla, ed., New French Thought: Political Philosophy
Gilles Lipovetsky, The Empire of Fashion: Dressing Modern Democracy
Pierre Manent, An Intellectual History of Liberalism
Jacques Bouveresse, Wittgenstein Reads Freud: The Myth of the Unconscious
Blandine Kriegel, The State and the Rule of Law
Alain Renaut, The Era of the Individual: A Contribution to a History of Subjectivity
Marcel Gauchet, The Disenchantment of the World: A Political History of Religion
Pierre Manent, The City of Man
Marcel Gauchet and Gladys Swain, Madness and Democracy:
The Modern Psychiatric Universe
Pierre Rosanvallon, The New Social Question: Rethinking the Welfare State
Jean-Marie Schaeffer, Art of the Modern Age: Philosophy of Art
from Kant to Heidegger
WSF Coe
130 . "Marcel Gauchet
The Disenchantment of the World
A POLITICAL HISTORY OF RELIGION
Translated by Oscar Burge
With a Foreword by Charles Taylor
BNEWFRENCH THOUGHT
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS - PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY
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Copyright © 1997 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,
Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton ES Pisad Chichester, West Sussex
Translated from the French edition of Marcel Gauchet, Le ee du monde
(Paris: © Editions Gallimard, 1985)
Ax Ricuts Reservep
Second printing, and first paperback printing, 1999
Paperback ISBN 0-691-02937-7
The Library of Congress has cataloged the cloth edition of this book as follows
Gauchet, Marcel, 1938-
[Désenchantement du monde. English]
The disenchantment of the world : a political history of religion / Marcel Gauchet ;
translated by Oscar Burge ; with a foreword by Charles Taylor.
p. cm.—(New French thought)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-691-04406-6 (alk. paper)
1. Religion. 2. Religions. 3. Religion and politics. 4. Civilizations, Secular.
I. Title. I. Series.
BL48.G3413 1997
200--de21 97-20046 CIP
Published with the assistance of the French Ministry of Culture
This book has been composed in Adobe Bauer Bodoni
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992
(R1997) (Permanence of Paper)
http://pup.princeton.edu
Printed in the United States of America
ROWOL LO 7 O ged” Gales
Contents
Foreword by Charles Taylor x
Introduction 3
Part One: Tue METAMORPHOSES OF THE DIVINE
THE ORIGiN, MEANING, AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE RELIGIOUS
The Historicity of the Religious 21
CuHaptTer 1
Primeval Religion or the Reign of the Absolute Past 23
CHAPTER 2
The State as Sacral Transforming Agent 33
Hierarchy 37
Domination 39
Conquest 41
The Axial Age 43
CuHapter 3
The Dynamics of Transcendence 47
Distancing God and Understanding the World 5I
Divine Greatness, Human Liberty 57
From Myth to Reason 62
From Dependence to Autonomy 64
CHAPTER 4
From Immersion in Nature to Transforming Nature 67
Indebtedness to the Gods, the Inter-Human Bond, and the
Relation to Things 68
THE POLITICAL MACHINE 70
THE VITALITY OF CHANGE 72
The Other World and Appropriating This World 74
o
vi ; CONTENTS
Heaven and Earth: Christianity’s Specificity 76
ORTHODOXY AND HERESY 79
INCARNATION AND INTERPRETATION 81
PRAYER AND WORK 84
The Structure of Terrestrial Integrity 86
THE CROWDED WORLD : / 87
COLLECTIVE PERMANENCE 88
PEACE A 92
HOMO OECONOMICUS 94
Part Two: Tue ApocrEr aNp Deatu or Gop
CHRISTIANITY AND WESTERN DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 9
The Powers of the Divine Subject 101
A Religion for Departing from Religion 101
Israel: Inventing God-as-One 107
MOSES: DOMINATING DOMINATION 108
THE COVENANT AND TRIAL BY ADVERSITY 109
THE PROPHETS 110
Jesus: The God-Man 115
MESSIANISM 15
THE SECOND MOSES 117
AN INVERTED MESSIAH 18
SAINT PAUL: THE UNIVERSAL GOD 124
CHRISTOLOGY 125,
CONQUERING THE CONQUERORS 127
The Christian Revolution: Faith, Church, King 130
The Greeks: The Religion of Reason 144
The Turn toward Equality I5I
CuHaPTER 6
Figures of the Human Subject 162
Being-a-Self: Consciousness, the Unconscious 166
Collective-Being: Governing the Future 172
FROM SUBJUGATED SOCIETY TO SOCIAL-SUBJECT 173
THE AGE OF IDEOLOGY 176
THE CHILD AND THE FUTURE = 179
BUREAUCRACY, DEMOCRACY 180
THE POWER OF THE IDENTICAL AND THE SOCIETY OF
THE NEW 185