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Santana, Rafael Alves de. "Habermas e o debate em torno do secularismo: implicações para o lugar da religião na esfera pública." Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, 2013. http://www.bdtd.uerj.br/tde_busca/arquivo.php?codArquivo=7165.
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Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível SuperiorA presente dissertação tem como objetivo principal investigar o conceito de pós-secularismo na filosofia de Jürgen Habermas. Para tanto, buscamos compreender como a religião aparece ao longo da construção do pensamento habermasiano, pontuando as diversas revisões feitas pelo filósofo e suas escolhas metodológicas, que resultaram numa mudança de perspectiva sobre o papel da religião na esfera pública das sociedades contemporâneas. A discussão de Jürgen Habermas se insere num debate mais amplo sobre o reexame do conceito de secularismo, envolvendo não apenas a filosofia, mas a ampla gama das ciências humanas e sociais. Assim, procuramos apresentar o contexto geral desse debate e os principais interlocutores com quem ou contra quem Habermas constrói sua argumentação. Por fim, tentamos mostrar de que maneira as revisões feitas por Habermas nos seus últimos escritos a respeito da religião, bem como a apropriação do conceito de sociedades pós-seculares, se enquadram na moldura geral da teoria habermasiana, principalmente dentro da estrutura do agir comunicativo e da política deliberativa.
This dissertation aims at investigate the concept of post-secularism in the philosophy of Jürgen Habermas. The work seeks to understand how religion appears throughout the construction of Habermas's thinking, pointing out the different revisions made by the philosopher and his methodological choices, which resulted in a change of perspective about the role of religion in the public sphere of contemporary societies. The Habermasian discussion is part of a broader debate on the revision of the concept of secularism, involving not only Philosophy, but the wide range of humanities and social sciences. Thus, this dissertation presents a general context of this debate and its main interlocutors with whom or against whom Habermas builds his argument. Finally, this work tries to show how the revisions made in his last writings concerning religion, as well as the appropriation of the concept of post-secular societies, fall into the general framework of Habermas theory, especially within the framework of communicative action and deliberative politics.
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Jones, Conner Douglas. "Secularism: A Measure of Explicit Agreement With Assumptions of Secularism (MEAAS)." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2021. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/9225.
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Values are inherent within cultures, relationships, and many other systems, however, little study has been done on the extent to which individuals may explicitly agree with the metaphysical assumptions that much of psychological science relies upon. Psychological science, which uses scientific methodology, is a trusted source of knowledge for many students. Scientific methodology is conceptually linked to assumptions of naturalism, which makes claims about the truth of reality. These naturalistic assumptions pertain to ideas of disenchantment, which describe the world as free from any transcendent quality. These same ideas have become popular among people of the Western world and are foundational to the worldview of secularism. Accessing whether, and to what extent, individuals explicitly agree or disagree with ideas of disenchantment inherent within secularism may help to better understand relationships between cultural, educational, and spiritual beliefs, and the underlying presumptions of psychological science. A measure of 30 items in length was created in order to evaluate the extent to which individuals agree with statements about some of the foundational assumptions of secularism as it relates to naturalism. A random sample of online participants (N=395) completed the items through an online survey platform. A 1-factor model provided sufficient statistical fit for the data, suggesting that items appeared to support the idea that this measure addresses attitudes of secularism, however no claims on the validity of the measure in the current study can be made. Suggestions for future study are provided.
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Baker, Joseph O. "Perceptions of Science and American Secularism." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2012. https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu-works/499.
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Theorized links between science and secularism are prevalent in classic sociological thought. More recently, scholars have critiqued these frameworks as oversimplified and empirically untenable. In response to such criticisms, contemporary researchers typically overlook or actively argue against links between science and secularism. This study analyzes data from a random, national survey of adults to examine the empirical connections between perceptions of science and secular identities in the United States. Analyses demonstrate that perceptions of science correlate strongly with American secularism, particularly among atheists and agnostics. Additionally, politicized views of science help account for the previously documented relationship between political and secular identities in the United States. A perspective drawing on the sociology of culture and perceived knowledge provides a more useful framework for understanding these patterns than theories of secularization.
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Haidar, Hamid Hadji. "Mill, Rawls and secularism : a comparative examination of secularism in Mill's comprehensive liberalism and Rawls's political liberalism." Thesis, University of Essex, 2006. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.426010.
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Mohamadi, Omid. "Modernity, secularism, and the political in Iran." Thesis, University of California, Santa Cruz, 2017. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10244526.
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In the last decade, theorists in anthropology and other disciplines have vigorously critiqued commonplace distinctions between secularism and religion. Highlighting how secularism is a form of Western epistemology, such theorists have argued this distinction is deeply problematic because it obscures secularism’s historical, political, and cultural particularity.
My dissertation argues Iran is well situated to engage in this debate because its political terrain brings into relief how discussions of secularity and religiosity often fall back on an irresolvable dichotomy wherein secularism is defended without qualification or religious authoritarianism is ignored altogether. In an effort to move out of this impasse, my dissertation critiques the presumed neutrality of secularism without defending a thoroughly undemocratic Islamic Republic.
Through an examination of three sites within Iranian politics since 1979, I show how alternatives to both secularism and undemocratic forms of Islam are already present in Iran. The first site that I explore is the contemporary Iranian women’s movement, specifically the One Million Signatures Campaign, which seeks full gender equality within the laws of the Islamic Republic. I argue that the internal logic of rights and a specific set of socio-political conditions that arose out of the revolution in 1979 made the newly fostered cooperation between Islamic and secular feminists within this campaign possible. Utilizing critiques of rights by poststructuralist and postcolonial feminists, I arrive at a critical endorsement of women’s rights in Iran that calls for nurturing more radical political imaginaries by not treating rights jurisprudence as the apex of social justice struggles.
My second site focuses on the politics of time and its role in the 2009 post-election uprising as a further example of the porous boundary between secularism and religion in Iran. After surveying the history of Iran’s three dominant calendars and the forty-day mourning cycle of Shi’ite Islam in the last century, I argue the Islamic Republic is founded on temporal simultaneity, a non-secular organization of time wherein past, present, and future are enfolded into one dynamic moment. I conclude that during the 2009 uprising, protesters initiated a crisis of legitimacy for the regime by reconfiguring temporal markers that comprise this symbolic foundation of the contemporary Iranian state.
My final site is the visual culture in the Islamic Republic as well as Western understandings and depictions of it. I argue such analyses of artistic production in Iran by Western observers rely on a particular understanding of the state, religion, and art as discrete categories wholly separate from one another. This argument is twofold, the first part of which is a historical survey that shows how the relationship between art and the state in Iran over the last sixty years has been co-constitutive. On the basis of this history, I then explore contemporary Iranian street art, both sanctioned and illicit, to show how this convergence of art and the state has continued to unfold in the Islamic Republic. I show how the boundaries between culture and the state have not calcified under the current regime but remain dynamically in flux, albeit different ways than in the previous historical epoch.
Lastly, I trace how the politics of secularism and religion both consolidates and frays the public/private divide within these three sites. Given this fact, the question of what to do with secularism and religion in Iran is ultimately a question of what to do about the divide between the private and public spheres. Taking up the issue of the double-bind structuring the public/private divide, I conclude my dissertation by surveying the ethical-politico limitations and possibilities of these alternative political imaginaries in Iran.
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Brown, Melanie. "For God’s Sake! Rethinking Secularism in Australia." Thesis, Department of Government and International Relations, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/8282.
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This dissertation proposes a new way of thinking about Muslims, religion and politics in Australia. It critically engages those commentators, academics and politicians who in recent years have used the language of ‘secularism’ to denounce publicly what they see as a major social and political threat posed by Australia’s growing Muslim population. The worn-out nineteenth-century ideology of secularism they draw upon presupposes the irrational primitivism of religion and fails to recognise present-day counter-trends. It should be rejected. This dissertation calls for a radical rethinking of the appropriate relations between religion and politics in a democratic society like Australia. It suggests that the principle of ‘religious secularity’ might be the answer: a new twenty-first century secularism which has room for the public flourishing of religions at the level of society, but maintains the independence of the state from religion. The dissertation shows, contrary to common perceptions, and despite the resilience of their highly visible and public religiosity, that Australia’s large Muslim communities overwhelmingly support the autonomy of state institutions from religious influence, and that they are important protagonists of the new secularism.
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Roychowdhury, Pampa. "Secularism in Indian culture : a critical study." Thesis, University of North Bengal, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/2599.
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Smith, David William. "Secularisation and evangelicalism a study in the reaction of conservative Christianity to the modern world /." Thesis, Available from the University of Aberdeen Library and Historic Collections Digital Resources, 1989. http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?application=DIGITOOL-3&owner=resourcediscovery&custom_att_2=simple_viewer&pid=59652.
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Wegert, Ute. "Die Säkularismus-Debatte in Indien: Indigene Tradition oder hegemoniales Konzept?" Doctoral thesis, Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig, 2015. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:15-qucosa-184141.
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Säkularismus ist in Indien spätestens seit den Assembly Debates Ende der 1940er Jahre ein Schlüsselbegriff in öffentlichen Debatten und ein zentraler Wert der Verfassung und der nationalen Identität. Als Gegenkonzept zu Kommunalismus, insbesondere Hindunationalismus, und Gewalt wird Säkularismus in Indien vorrangig als Toleranz und equal respect for all religions konzipiert. Die akademische Debatte über Säkularismus erscheint in Indien ausgesprochen normativ, emotional und politisiert. In der von mir untersuchten Kontroverse, die um die Frage kreist, inwieweit es sich bei der Kategorie Säkularismus um ein hegemoniales, westliches Konzept oder eine indigene Tradition handele, stehen sich zwei Lager oder „Clans“ gegenüber. Während die postkolonialistischen Säkularismus-Kritiker T.N. Madan und Ashis Nandy diese in ihren Augen fremde, imperiale Kategorie ablehnen und Säkularismus in Indien als gescheitert betrachten, unternehmen die Säkularismus-Befürworter Rajeev Bhargava und Romila Thapar den Versuch, säkulare Wurzeln in der indischen Tradition zu rekonstruieren und Säkularismus damit in Indien anschlussfähig zu machen. Interessanterweise beziehen sich alle vier Wissenschaftler in ihren Texten auf die tolerante Religionspolitik des Maurya-Königs Ashoka (3. Jh. v. Chr.) und des Mogulherrschers Akbar (16. Jh. n. Christus). Während Bhargava und Thapar darin eine Art Proto-Säkularismus sehen, geht es Nandy und Madan darum, die indische Toleranztradition von der Vorherrschaft der Säkularismuskategorie zu befreien. Ihnen schwebt eine tolerante „ghandianische“ Staatspolitik vor, die nicht unter dem Label Säkularismus läuft, sondern auf alten, indischen Traditionen und der gelebten, auf Religion basierenden Toleranz des Volkes gründet.
Alle vier Wissenschaftler bekennen sich in ihren Texten über den Säkularismus explizit zu ihren politischen Positionen und verstehen sich gleichzeitig als Wissenschaftler und Aktivisten. Beide Lager, sowohl Madan und Nandy, als auch Thapar und Bhargava, engagieren und echauffieren sich in der Kontroverse über Säkularismus und die Anwendbarkeit dieses Konzepts im indischen Kontext in einem bemerkenswerten Ausmaß. Ziel meiner Arbeit ist es, Antworten auf die Frage zu finden, weshalb die untersuchte Debatte so hochgradig emotional ausfällt und was die Wissenschaftler antreibt, so leidenschaftlich am Säkularismus festzuhalten oder diese Kategorie genauso vehement abzulehnen.
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Gyulay, Nicola. "Religion and secularism in Naipaul, Rushdie and Okri." Thesis, Royal Holloway, University of London, 2006. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.582841.
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Baker, Joseph O., and Buster G. Smith. "American Secularism: Cultural Contours of Nonreligious Belief Systems." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2015. http://amzn.com/1479873721.
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A rapidly growing number of Americans are embracing life outside the bounds of organized religion. Although America has long been viewed as a fervently religious Christian nation, survey data shows that more and more Americans are identifying as “not religious.” There are more non-religious Americans than ever before, yet social scientists have not adequately studied or typologized secularities, and the lived reality of secular individuals in America has not been astutely analyzed. American Secularism documents how changes to American society have fueled these shifts in the non-religious landscape and examines the diverse and dynamic world of secular Americans. This volume offers a theoretical framework for understanding secularisms. It explores secular Americans’ thought and practice to understand secularisms as worldviews in their own right, not just as negations of religion. Drawing on empirical data, the authors examine how people live secular lives and make meaning outside of organized religion. Joseph O. Baker and Buster G. Smith link secularities to broader issues of social power and organization, providing an empirical and cultural perspective on the secular landscape. In so doing, they demonstrate that shifts in American secularism are reflective of changes in the political meanings of “religion” in American culture. American Secularism addresses the contemporary lived reality of secular individuals, outlining forms of secular identity and showing their connection to patterns of family formation, sexuality, and politics, providing scholars of religion with a more comprehensive understanding of worldviews that do not include traditional religion.https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu_books/1028/thumbnail.jpg
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Evans, Richard Kent. "MOVE: RELIGION, SECULARISM, AND THE POLITICS OF CLASSIFICATION." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2018. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/505910.
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HistoryPh.D.
This dissertation is a study of how religion is manufactured, policed, imagined, and defended in the modern United States. It traces the history of one group, MOVE, from its inception in the late 1960s to the present in order to illustrate how the category of religion functions in the modern United States. The central premise of the book is that MOVE people believed MOVE was a religion. They believed, nearly from the very beginning of the group, that John Africa was a prophet who communicated on behalf of the divine, that his Teachings were inspired and had supernatural effects on the body, and that MOVE people had a role to play in a cosmic conflict between forces of good (The Law of Mama) and forces of evil (The System). Despite this, MOVE was rarely allowed to be a religion. That is, MOVE’s claim that they had a religion was, more often than not, dismissed. Historians of religion have, in recent years, begun turning their attention to the people with the power to define lived experience as either religious or secular. In MOVE’s case, the people who defined their experience as secular, and not religious, included police officers, judges, journalists, established religious leaders, and politicians. At various points throughout MOVE’s history, these social actors articulated a series of claims about what “true religion” was and why MOVE did not count. The disconnect between how MOVE people viewed themselves and how MOVE was understood by most outside the group points to the central concern of this dissertation.
Temple University--Theses
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Baker, Terry Hunter Hankins Barry. "Christianity, secularism, and America an exploration and critique of the historical, legal, social, and philosophical implications of secularism from an American perspective /." Waco, Tex. : Baylor University, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/2104/5134.
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Ahmad, Khairil Izamin Bin. "Exploring pluralism: secularism and liberalism in the United Kingdom." Thesis, University of Essex, 2013. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.601672.
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Against the dominance of liberal political theory in accounting for the challenge of pluralism, this thesis aims to provide a more adequate alternative. Focusing on religious identification and demands, it is argued that the liberal response, because it takes secular thinking as unproblematic when considering what role citizens with 1 religious affiliation can play in the democratic public sphere, fails to develop an account of democratic pol itics that allows for the visibility of religious citizens in public life in a non-exclusive fashion. It focuses too heavily on looking for ways to control the terms that govern democratic exchanges in the plural polity, and pays li ttle attention to invest on ways that would allow for a pluralism that is dynamic and fluid. An alternative conception of pluralism is then set out, based on the work of William E. Connolly. It projects a vIsion towards the attainment of a deep and multidimensionaJly plural society, where diverse but intersecting constituencies 1 inhabit the democratic public sphere. The arguments in the thesis are supponed by three cases-in-point. The example of successive UK governments' attempt at nationbui lding, where they affinn to the value of the plural society but insist on a consensus anchored by 'British values' is fleshed out to show how the liberal shortcomings can transpire in practice. Rowan Williams' sharia law lecture, in which he argues for the public recognition of aspects of the Islamic sharia law in Britain, serves as an example to show how religious demands may go beyond the limits of the secular liberal VISIOn. The alternative vision that is defended in the thesis is supported by drawing lessons from the theory of legal pluralism, to show how religious belongings and institutions are of importance to religious citizens, by drawing insights UK Muslim legal practices that function without state recognition, and a case is made on why ir is important that minority legal norms are given due public recognition. 'I
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Baker, Joseph O., Kelli K. Smith, and Yasmin A. Stoss. "Theism, Secularism, and Sexual Education in the United States." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2015. https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu-works/491.
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Substantial bodies of literature have examined public opinion about sexual education, the politicization of sexual education in public schools, and connections between population characteristics and social policies. At present, however, little is known about whether and how population characteristics predict the likelihood of specific sexual education policies. We analyze data at the state level in the USA to determine if and how specific religious aspects of states’ populations influence the likelihood of specific sexual education policies. Results indicate that high levels of theism significantly increase the likelihood of sexual education policies stressing abstinence, while higher levels of individuals not actively participating in organized religion correlate with a significantly higher likelihood of having sexual education policy that mandates the coverage of contraception. We discuss these findings in a framework of symbolic politics and moral communities, focusing on the intersections of religion, politics, and sexuality.
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Abadee, Daniel. "Exploring Secularity Studying Australian Secularists." Thesis, Department of Government and International Relations, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/8869.
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Oliveira, Juliano Cordeiro da Costa. "Secularismo e religiÃo na democracia deliberativa de Habermas : da pragmÃtica ao dÃficit ontolÃgico e metafÃsico." Universidade Federal do CearÃ, 2017. http://www.teses.ufc.br/tde_busca/arquivo.php?codArquivo=19417.
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FundaÃÃo de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do CearÃO problema a ser levantado nesta tese à que hÃ, em JÃrgen Habermas, um dÃficit ontolÃgico (a falta de uma teoria dos entes) e metafÃsico (a falta de uma teoria do Ser) em sua filosofia. O pensamento de Habermas se reduziria à pragmÃtica, nÃo deixando espaÃo para o aprofunda-mento de questÃes ontolÃgicas e metafÃsicas, que o prÃprio Habermas sugere implicitamente, embora sem aprofundar, por se manter fiel ao seu pensamento pÃs-metafÃsico. Quais as consequÃncias disso para sua proposta de um diÃlogo entre secularismo e religiÃo na democracia deliberativa e mesmo para sua anÃlise do fenÃmeno religioso? O dÃficit ontolÃgico e metafÃsico, analisado primeiramente na filosofia teÃrica, em Verdade e justificaÃÃo, percorreria igual-mente sua filosofia polÃtica, à medida que Habermas nÃo reflete acerca do carÃter universal do bem na sua defesa da Ãtica do justo. Finalmente, o dÃficit ontolÃgico e metafÃsico alcanÃaria tambÃm sua anÃlise dos discursos religiosos, restritos à pragmÃtica, apesar de Habermas reconhecer a importÃncia das religiÃes, quando traduzem suas intuiÃÃes essenciais para uma linguagem pÃblica e secular. Puntel, nesse sentido, coloca uma questÃo teÃrica, que o leva a afirmar, com razÃo, que a metafÃsica à a instÃncia em que se articula o conteÃdo da religiÃo. Como o problema de Habermas à puramente pragmÃtico, isto Ã, como tornar possÃvel um diÃ-logo entre crentes e nÃo crentes, ele nÃo leva em consideraÃÃo a dimensÃo metafÃsica da religiÃo, mas apenas seu conteÃdo Ãtico. Nesse contexto, à essencial distinguir claramente duas questÃes que aparecem em Habermas: 1) um problema teÃrico: Habermas aceita a centralidade da linguagem numa teoria, embora possua uma anÃlise unilateral da linguagem, por reduzi--la a uma anÃlise da dimensÃo pragmÃtica; 2) um problema prÃtico: como à possÃvel a convivÃncia entre crentes e nÃo crentes numa sociedade pluralista e democrÃtica? Dessa forma, em Habermas, diversas questÃes podem ser avaliadas tanto à luz da filosofia como da sociologia. Contudo, tal fato traz tambÃm uma sÃrie de confusÃes nÃo apenas do prÃprio Habermas como igualmente de seus intÃrpretes e crÃticos, uma vez que as questÃes, sejam elas filosÃficas ou sociolÃgicas, sÃo postas como sendo de mesmo tipo. Um exemplo disso à o tema da religiÃo, que ora aparece a partir de um ponto de vista sociolÃgico de uma teoria da sociedade, ora a partir de um viÃs filosÃfico e propriamente teÃrico. Este trabalho, contudo, encontra-se no Ãmbito estritamente filosÃfico, haja vista que haveria um dÃficit ontolÃgico e metafÃsico na sistemÃtica do pensamento de Habermas, tendo consequÃncias em sua anÃlise limitada do fenÃmeno religioso, restrito à dimensÃo pragmÃtica da linguagem.
The problem to be raised in this thesis is that there is, in JÃrgen Habermasâ philosophy, an ontological deficit (a lack of a theory of the beings) and also a metaphysical dÃficit (the lack of a theory of the Being). Habermasâs thinking would, as far as we are concerned, be reduced to pragma- tics, leaving no room to the deepening of ontological and metaphysical questions, which Habermas himself implicitly suggests, although without further elaboration, for remaining faithful to his post-metaphysical thinking. Anyway, what are the consequences of such thinking for his proposal of a dialogue between secularism and religion in the deliberative democracy and even for his analysis of a religious phenomenon? The ontological and metaphysical deficit, first analyzed in the theoretical philosophy, in Truth and justification, would equally run its political philosophy, once Habermas does not reflect on the universal character of the good, in his defense of the ethics of the righteous. Finally, the ontological and metaphysical deficit would also reach its analysis of religious discourses, restricted to pragmatics, although Habermas recognizes the importance of religions when they translate their essential intuitions into a public and secular language. Puntel, in this sense, highlights a theoretical question, which leads him to rightly affirm that metaphysics is the instance in which the contents of religion is articulated. Since Habermasâ problem is purely pragmatic, that is, how to enable a dialogue between believers and non-believers, he does not take into account the metaphysical dimension of religion, but only its ethical contents. It is essential, in this context, to clearly distinguish two questions that appear in Habermas. 1) A theoretical problem: Habermas accepts the centrality of the language in a theory, although it has a unilateral analysis of the language, by reducing it into an analysis of the pragmatic dimension of the language; 2) A practical problem, he wonders: How may coexistence between believers and non-believers in a pluralistic and democratic society be possible? Thus, in Habermas, several questions can be eva-luated both in the light of philosophy and sociology. However, this fact also brings a series of confusions not only of Habermasâ himself, but also of his interpreters and critics, since the questions, no matter wheather they are philosophical or sociological, they are exposed as being of the same type. An example of such theme is religion, which now appears from a sociological point of view of a theory of society, sometimes through a philosophical and properly theoretical bias. Our work, however, is strictly philosophical, once in our view there would be an ontological and metaphysical deficit in Habermasâ ways of thinking, with consequences in his limited analysis of the religious phenomenon, restricted to the pragmatic dimension of the language.
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Robinson, James George. "Secularism and sacralism in the poetic theory of Friedrich Schlegel." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1987. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/24277.
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Deftereos, Christine. "Contesting secularism : Ashis Nandy and the cultural politics of selfhood /." Connect to thesis, 2009. http://repository.unimelb.edu.au/10187/5722.
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This dissertation establishes that the methods used to generate social and political criticism are just as important as the ideas expressed. This proposition is explored in both the ideas and methods of the Indian political psychologist Ashis Nandy. For over thirty-five years Nandy has contributed extensively to a number of debates within a global academic culture, and as a public intellectual in India. His critique of Indian secularism has produced intense controversy, and is a dynamic case to explore this relationship between critique and method, and by extension the identity of the critic. This case study also allows for an analysis, of what is widely accepted, as the confronting features of his critique. In radically questioning the ways in which the ideology of secularism operates in Indian political culture, and in defining concepts of Indianness, Nandy contests dominant political ideas and ideals. Further, he confronts the role these ideas and ideals play in foreclosing understandings of national identity, national integration and Indian democracy. I argue that this confrontation demonstrates a critical and psychoanalytic engagement with the constituting features of Indian political culture, and political identities. This case study also provides a context to consider the implications of this approach for understanding and representing the identity of the critic.Much criticism of Nandy and his work is based on beliefs that he represents the intellectual basis of anti-secularism and anti-modernism in India. According to these accounts Nandy carries forward a threatening and disruptive quality. This is evident, it is claimed, in his calls to return to a regressive traditionalism. These responses represent his ideas and his identity within a particular ideological and intellectual framework. This takes place though, at the expense of engaging with the methods operating in his work. The focus on the disruptive and threatening features of Nandy and his work creates a series of over-determined responses that undermine recognition of his psychoanalytic approach. I argue that the location of agitation and fascination for critics is in Nandy’s willingness to confront accepted identities, meanings, fantasies, projections and ideals operating in politics, and in working through the complexities of subjectivity. This aptitude for working with external and internal processes, at the border between culture and psyche is where the psychoanalytic focus of his work is located. The psychoanalytic focus, in working with and working through the complexities of human subjectivity, produces a confronting self-reflexivity that can disarm critics. Nandy’s psychoanalytic reading of secularism is the starting point for theorising and characterising the method, or mode of critique operating across his work more broadly.
This dissertation argues that Nandy’s approach or method is characterised by a psychoanalytic mode. The psychoanalytic mode of engagement is illustrated in his capacity to generate critical analytic perspectives that rupture and regenerate subjectivity, including his own. This dissertation demonstrates Nandy’s psychoanalytic commitment, and argues the importance of this approach. Therefore, this reading of Nandy and the methods that are employed to develop this inquiry, build a case for the importance of psychoanalytic concepts, as a necessary interpretive mode for social and political criticism.
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Jansen, Hiske Yolande Mariëlle. "Stuck in a revolving door secularism, assimilation and democratic pluralism /." [S.l. : Amsterdam : s.n.] ; Universiteit van Amsterdam [Host], 2006. http://dare.uva.nl/document/90694.
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Ivermee, Robert. "Secularism contested : Indian muslims and colonial governmentality, c. 1830-1910." Thesis, University of Kent, 2013. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.633830.
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In the early nineteenth century, European officials in India determined that the education offered in state schools and colleges would be exclusively secular: no religious teaching would be imparted in colonial educational institutions. This thesis enquires into the impact of the religious-secular distinction in Indian education from this date. After revisiting the origins of the government's commitment to secular education, it focuses upon the engagement of Indian Muslims with the colonial state, discerning how far Muslim parties opposed the separation of religion from education. The argument is advanced that concerns for the provision of religious education in the colonial system of public instruction played a critical role in the development of Muslim public activity, and of understandings of Muslim community, under British rule. Across the breadth of northern India, in Bengal, the North-Western Provinces and the Punjab, Muslim parties contested the divorce of religion from education, challenging the colonial government to respond to the requirements of their religious constituency. I employ the Foucauldian concept of governmentality which enhances our understanding of how the British government of India introduced a multiplicity of practices, including colonial public instruction, to regulate conduct and fashion subjectivities among Indian subjects. Building upon existing studies of the Anglo-Indian state as a governmentalised entity, the thesis then explores Indian Muslim negotiations of colonial educational provisions through which aspects of colonial governmentality were revised. The evolving institutions of civil society provided a location for Muslim parties to formulate public opinion and negotiate with government. With the growing support of European officials and educationalists, Muslim individuals and associations challenged the exclusion of religious teaching from government institutions and asserted the importance both of religious community and faith in Indian public spheres. The colonial separation of state. from religion was contested by Muslim parties interrogating nineteenth century meanings of the concept of secularism.
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Gaur, Meenu. "Kashmir on screen : region, religion and secularism in Hindi cinema." Thesis, SOAS, University of London, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.561285.
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The Kashmir dispute has led to two wars (1947-1948, 1965), serious military encounters (1999,2001) between India and Pakistan, as well as a militant and nonmilitant separatist movement seeking independence for Kashmir (1989- ). While this conflict has been subjected to sustained analysis by academics and journalists, Kashmir's centrality to the public culture ofIndia, explored here through a study of Hindi cinema, has received little to no attention in the considerable literature on the area. The articulations of Kashmir in Hindi cinema - as a paradise on earth, sacred site of Hinduism, home ofIndia's spiritual and syncretistic traditions, pivotal to the idea of an eternal Indian civilization - help to reveal the attachments that guide 'Indian' claims on Kashmir. This study addresses the question of how, why and in what ways Kashmir is presented as a 'special' region in Hindi cinema. In doing so it initiates a discussion on region and religion in Hindi cinema, scholarship on which has long prioritized the 'nation'. As India's only Muslim-majority regional state, divided between India and Pakistan, Kashmir became a symbol of Indian secularism, a fact that is often reiterated in political discourse, as well as in academic research on the Kashmir dispute. Paradoxically, this symbol of Indian secularism, it is argued, is a site for religious contestations in Hindi cinema. The synonymy between Indian and Hindu in Kashmir films rests on the disavowal of a 'Muslim' Kashmir, so as to allay a Hindu majoritarian anxiety about a Muslim majority region in post-partition India. Therefore, the abstract equality of secularism, and the neutrality of 'national culture' remain merely 'ideals' in India's dominant form of public culture, namely Hindi cinema. The representations of Kashmir in Hindi cinema make explicit the regional and religious contestations over the national and the secular, providing a far more diverse account of history, culture and politics in India than is commonly acknowledged by 'official' discourses, mainstream historiography, and nation-centred (film) scholarship.
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Taylor, Jennifer Marion. "After secularism : inner city governance & the new religious discourse." Thesis, SOAS, University of London, 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.252276.
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Gutkowski, Stacey Elizabeth. "Religious violence, secularism and the British security imaginary, 2001-2009." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.608941.
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Sanders, Elizabeth Mildred. "Enchanting Belief: Religion and Secularism in the Victorian Supernatural Novel." Diss., University of Iowa, 2015. http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/5186.
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Ahmadoghlu, Ramin. "Nationalism, Secularism, and Islam: Azerbaijani Turks in Azerbaijan and Iran." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1468337156.
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Debnath, Sailen. "Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and secularism : his ideas and activities." Thesis, University of North Bengal, 1986. http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/1221.
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Lee, Lois. "Being secular : towards separate sociologies of secularity, nonreligion and epistemological culture." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2012. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.610833.
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Howard, Augustus Pritchard. "A proper secularism : beyond ideology in Bulgakov, Trilling, Updike and Pynchon." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2019. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/290386.
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My dissertation, "A Proper Secularism: Beyond Ideology in Bulgakov, Trilling, Updike and Pynchon," explores the ways in which the literary imagination pushes beyond ideology, and points towards notions of the eternal, by attunement and fidelity to the material. In the terms of Rowan Williams, "if a proper secularism requires faith; if it is to guarantee freedom, this is because a civilized politics must be a politics attuned to the real capacities and dignities of the person." It is the argument of this thesis that the literary imagination, when operating with integrity, mirrors this understanding of the properly secular. A proper secularism is thus defined as both an insistence upon accurate portrayal of the material world in all its variety and difference and, concomitantly, as an honest "holding together" of that difference that can provide an approach to the eternal. It is my contention that four novels, The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov; The Middle of the Journey by Lionel Trilling; Roger's Version by John Updike; and Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, each embody and rely upon this understanding of the secular. In so doing, each book pushes beyond the ideology of a century of war and violent imposition. Bulgakov's novel was composed in the heart of Communist Russia; Trilling's novel deals with the lives and ideological biases of Communist sympathizers in America; Pynchon writes from America but about London as it copes with the unitary, impositional ideology of death as signified by the German V-2 rocket in World War II; John Updike, though not overtly concerned with the Cold War in Roger's Version, nonetheless explores the machinery of war in the computer and its language. It is the argument of this dissertation that these novels constitute an answer to the violence of impositional ideology, a counter-arc to the path of the rocket, gravity's impositional rainbow.
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Schwartz, Laura. "Infidel feminism : religion, secularism and women's rights in England 1803-1889." Thesis, University of East London, 2008. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.532894.
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This thesis is a study of the feminist dimension of Freethought in nineteenth-century Britain, and the part played by freethinking critiques of Christianity in the Victorian women's movement. `Infidel feminists' saw religion, specifically Christianity, as the root of women's oppression and equated female emancipation with liberation from the bonds of superstition. This distinctive brand of feminism was advocated by the Freethought movement as part of its wider agenda to rid society of false and repressive belief-systems through the critique of orthodox religion. Organised Freethought was home to a small number of prominent female activists who developed and promoted this `Freethinking feminism'. For these women the rejection of religion encouraged and shaped support for women's rights. Freethinkers' commitment to moral autonomy, free speech and the democratic dissemination of knowledge, their rejection of God-given notions of sexual difference and their critique of the Christian institution of marriage, provided powerful intellectual tools with which to challenge dominant and oppressive attitudes to womanhood. Infidel feminists criticised, engaged with and contributed to the wider women's movement. It is therefore argued that although nineteenth-century feminism was predominantly Christian, it was built around religious controversy and contestation rather than a unified adherence to a particular set of religious values. The argument presented has important implications for existing scholarship on both feminism and secularisation. It is the first in-depth study of Freethinking feminism, which has been almost entirely neglected in histories of First Wave feminism. A fuller understanding of the important role played by the `infidel feminists' enables us to identify a more continuous feminist tradition throughout the century, connecting the more `radical' Owenite feminists of the 1830s and 40s with the more `respectable' post-1850 women's movement. By showing how Freethinking feminism developed not only in opposition to, but also in dialogue with, Christian debates on women, the thesis contributes to current rethinking of the `religious'/`secular', distinction, demonstrating that these categories should be viewed as interdependent rather than merely oppositional. As the thesis shows, the Christian faith, against which infidel feminists campaigned so vigorously, fundamentally structured their Secularist commitments.
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Alkan, Yavuz Selim. "Facilitative secularism : the place of religious arguments in public political debate." Thesis, University of Leicester, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/2381/32341.
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The predominant understanding of secularism is based on two notions. First, the secular state should be completely or strictly separated from religion. Second, the secular state should be strictly neutral with regard to religion. This understanding of secularism, what I call secularism as strict separation/neutrality, equates neutral to secular and excludes religious arguments a priori from public political debate by invoking secular or public reason. Its more aggressive form, viz. ethical secularism, embraces the whole secularisation thesis as a comprehensive doctrine and thereby aims to impose a secular way of life upon individuals. Both types of secularism have significant exclusionary effects on religious arguments. They are therefore inconsistent with the democratic ideals of equal participation and state neutrality. In order to address this problem, I suggest in this thesis the need to reconsider the relationship between secularism and the place of religious arguments in public political debate. The originality in the thesis lies in its redefinition of this relationship within the context of an alternative understanding of secularism. I argue that the democratic principles of equal participation and state neutrality are best pursued when a facilitative understanding of secularism is embraced. Facilitative secularism is based on three assumptions. First, that there should be a minimum functional, institutional, organisational, and role differentiation between the state and religion, what I call secularism as minimal differentiation. Second, that secularism as minimal differentiation should be delinked from the restrictive interpretations of philosophical and sociological secularisation. And third, that a more inclusive and pluralist framework for public political debate should be generated. This framework should be created by redefining the doctrine of restraint. The place of both religious and secular arguments in public political debate should be determined according to whether they comply, not with secular or public reason, but with the normative criteria of secularism as minimal differentiation and the civic virtues of deliberation. In this study, I also apply this novel understanding of secularism to an illustrative example of the Turkish experience of secularism. The aim is to indicate how well facilitative secularism provides a suitable theoretical and normative framework with respect to expression of religious arguments in public political debate in Turkey.
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Cagaptay, Soner. "Islam, secularism, and nationalism in modern Turkey : who is a Turk ? /." London ; New York : Routledge, 2006. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb402323640.
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Branch, Lori. "Rituals of spontaneity : sentiment and secularism from free prayer to Wordsworth /." Waco : Baylor university press, 2006. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb40938920p.
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Çarmikli, Eyup Sabri. "Caught between Islam and the West : secularism in the Kemalist discourse." Thesis, University of Westminster, 2011. https://westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk/item/90126/caught-between-islam-and-the-west-secularism-in-the-kemalist-discourse.
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This thesis identifies the defining signifiers for the Kemalist discourse as the West and Islam. Kemalism mainly related to the West through the hegemonic discourse of Orientalism, and the Kemalist attitude towards Islam was characterised by its peculiar brand of secularism. Orientalism portrayed the East as irrational in all aspects of the economic, political and social realms. In contrast the West was rational, enlightened, scientific, determined to keep its destiny at its hands, hardworking, honest, and efficient. There was an essential difference between the two realms, which prevented the East to progress. The numerous aspects of the West-East dichotomy are investigated in detail by utilising a number of Western sources including newspaper stories, travel accounts, and diplomatic correspondence and a plethora of Kemalist texts. The documentary analysis in the thesis is based on original research. The Orientalist view even prescribed a recipe for Turkey’s progress, and Kemalism is defined in the thesis as a discourse whıch argues that Turkey must adopt Western civilization in its totality, including music, dress, alphabet, etc, and completely erase its past as symbolized by Islam. The Kemalist reform agenda amounted to a utopia, to transform Turkey in such a radical manner that Turkey would appear indistinguishable from the West, in its script, dress, music, political organisation, etc. However, this meant a total re-activation o f t he ‘ the s ocial’ i n T urkey a nd everything becoming part of ‘the political.’ But then, Kemalism never acknowledged the antagonistic and conflictual nature of the political. The relationship between ‘Kemalism and Orientalism’ and that between ‘Kemalism and secularism’ have been studied by various authors, however the originality of this work lies in its emphasis on the relationship between ‘the social’ and the political,’ and its careful analysis on the total re-activation of the social through the Kemalist reforms. In its ambitious project, Kemalism regarded Islam, which represented the Ottoman Turkish tradition, as the ‘main problem’ with the potential to nurture formidable opposition. Hence, Kemalist secularism was first and foremost an attack against Islam. Secularism, supported by a strong belief on the power of science and rationality to organise human life, and a strong aversion towards the religious and the traditional, was the central pillar of Kemalism. The thesis shows how Kemalism was caught between Islam and the West, and argues that secularism is the most important aspect of Kemalism, because Kemalism is an ‘Orientalism from within.’
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Williams, Andrew Jerome. "Tolerable faiths: religious toleration, secularism, and the eighteenth-century British novel." Diss., University of Iowa, 2015. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/6521.
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The purpose of my research was to understand the role that the novel played in the development of religious toleration in eighteenth-century Britain. In my first chapter, I draw on an archive of polemical texts, legal documents, correspondence, sermons, and novels to reconstruct the historical and ideological transformations that occurred between the English Civil War (1642) and Catholic Emancipation (1829). I demonstrate the centrality of anti-Catholicism to the construction of British identity and arguments for the toleration of Protestant Dissenters. Throughout my dissertation, I argue that the novel served as a site for the articulation of new concepts and identities, and functioned as a mechanism for transforming readers’ subjectivities. One of the most important transformations to which the novel contributed was the elaboration of the concept of tolerance as a supplement to toleration. As an individual, private affect, tolerance depoliticizes religious difference, shifting emphasis away from the existential threat that toleration could potentially pose to the state and established church. The most surprising finding of my research was the extent to which novelists drew on a contemporary theological discourse of charity in developing this idea. My readings demonstrate the need for an understanding of secularization that would see it not only as a separation out of church and state, but also as a set of corresponding changes within religion, and a process whereby religious ideas are brought into what we normally think of as secular political ideas, like tolerance.
Daniel Defoe plays a pivotal role in my dissertation, as both a prolific polemicist and one of the first novelists. My second chapter explores his polemical arguments for toleration, before moving on to examine how the political philosophy he develops in them informs the Robinson Crusoe novels (1719-1720). I argue that the liberty of conscience that Crusoe offers is tenuous and fragile in the first novel because of contradictions in Defoe’s political thought. In The Farther Adventures (1720), he is able to offer a more robust vision of toleration, by placing the relationship of charity between the Protestant Crusoe and a French priest at the center of his novel. In chapter three I shift my focus to the formal features of the Crusoe novels, arguing that the first novel urges its readers to undergo a series of identifications that lead them toward the charitable tolerance that the second novel thematizes. The second novel disperses the narrative function between characters, highlighting the role of perspective in religious knowledge. My fourth chapter argues that in Sir Charles Grandison (1753), Samuel Richardson demonstrates that tolerance can function as a bulwark, rather than a threat, to British identity. Richardson simultaneously offers a positive representation of Catholic characters and shows how tolerance in the face of intolerance can found a new identity secured by a dynamic of moral and epistemological condescension. My final chapter turns to an exploration of how the Gothic novel could mediate changes in the political and ideological context at the end of the eighteenth century, as toleration was first being extended to Catholics in Britain. I argue that Lusignan (1801) represents Catholic monasticism in a way that makes it not only newly tolerable, but also newly desirable for British readers. At the same time, the novel demonstrates more forcibly than any of the preceding texts, the secularizing negotiations that not only Catholicism, but religion itself, underwent during the increasing modernization and liberalization of Britain through the eighteenth century.
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Di, Somma Emilio. "Fides and secularity : an analysis of Charles Taylor and beyond." Thesis, University of Aberdeen, 2016. http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=231636.
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The focus of this thesis is demonstrating how the conceptual difference between secularity and religion is a foundational presupposition of the modern academic and political discourse. The thesis will focus on a critical analysis of Charles Taylor's philosophical work, particularly A Secular Age. Taylor's work is a telling example of how the current academic discourse about religion and secularity describes the two phenomena as radically different, two different “states of existence” that appeal to different contents of human consciousness. Taylor's philosophy has to rely on a fundamental presupposition of reality, so that he can describe the history of Western civilization as an unavoidable epistemic gain that has reached its peak with the development of the modern understanding of the world. Despite his attempt to develop a “positive” story to explain the development of secularity, Taylor has to rely on a moment of “loss” to make sense of his historical narrative. In the second part of thesis, I will present the argument that the concept of “faith” can be understood as a fundamental form of relation that connects individuals and societies to an ontology of the world. In pre-modern societies, the concept was understood as a normative source for the ethical and existential understanding of a society in both religious and nonreligious contexts, not just as a mystical connection to a transcendental source of truth. With modernity, the understanding of the concept has changed. However, this different understanding has not been followed by a disappearance of the attitude of “faith” in non-religious contexts. The “attitude of faith” can be understood as the fundamental connection a society/civilization establishes with its Weltaanschauung, its metaphysical world-view. More than being a “religious” connection to the transcendent, faith would be the form of connection through which human beings substantiate the ultimate nature of their claims.
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Lysén, Jan. "Ett postsekulärt Sverige?" Thesis, Högskolan Dalarna, Religionsvetenskap, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:du-33538.
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Religionens synlighet i en global värld och krav på politiskt inflytande är föremål för debatt och forskning. Ett av forskningsfälten är revideringen av sekulariseringsteorin som öppnat för en avprivatisering av religionen i det civila samhället, där den kan utgöra en motkraft mot totalitära rörelser, kritik av kapitalismen avigsidor som konsumism och en fördjupad diskussion om existentiella frågor. I Sverige är Joel Halldorf - liberal krönikör, akademisk forskare och kristen – en förespråkare för postsekultärt förhållningssätt till den religiösa diversifieringen med grund i migrationen. Undersökningen inriktas på hur Halldorf utifrån sina olika roller argumenterar för religionen ökade inflytande i samhället. En grund för Halldorfs argumentation är en funktionell religionsdefinition som låter Halldorf betona religionernas förmåga att till gemenskap och organisation i föreningar. Halldorfs tankar har mött motstånd från delar av den liberala pressen varför detta motstånd kommer att korreleras mot Halldorfs olika roller i den här uppsatsen.The visibility of religion in a global world and demands for political influence are subject to debate and research. One of the fields of research is the revision of the theory of secularism which has opened to the de-privatization of religion in civil society, where it can constitute a counterforce against totalitarian movements, criticism of capitalism downsides to consumerism and an in-depth discussion of existential issues. In Sweden, Joel Halldorf - Liberal columnist, academic scientist and Christian - is an advocate of post-secularistic approach to religious diversification based on migration. The survey focuses on how Halldorf based on his different roles argue for religion increased influence in society. A basis for Halldorf's argumentation is a functional definition of religion that allows Halldorf to emphasize the ability of religions to fellowship and organization in associations. Halldorf's thoughts have met resistance from parts of the liberal press why this resistance will be correlated to Halldorf's different roles.
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Bezirgan, Bengi. "Europe And Muslim Immigrants At The Intersection Of Secularism, Religion And Racism." Master's thesis, METU, 2010. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12612787/index.pdf.
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This study intends to discuss the problematical relation between Europe and Muslim immigrants in the light of the issues of secularism, religion and racism. Over the three decades, there has been a large body of literature in both theoretical and empirical fields about the peculiar European identity, the implications of secularism for European society and its distance from religion particularly in public sphere. Besides, 1980 onwards, the focus of the theories of racism shifted from biological explanations to culturally designated accounts. European manner of production of knowledge about race has started to concentrate on the incompatible cultural character of Muslim immigrants. Simultaneously, multicultural discourse has been put forward as an evidence for anti-racist and tolerant approach towards these guest citizens. By taking into consideration these theoretical analyses about Europe, the main goal of this study is to point out how specific discursive sphere is produced-reproduced and the representations of Muslim immigrants are shaped by certain Eurocentric definitions and recurrent notions. This attempt contains two interrelated theoretical layers. On the one hand, it is aimed to uncover the stereotyped and racist representations of Muslim immigrants in both public and political discussions. On the other hand, the inherent contradictions of Europe as both sovereign political subjectivity and hegemonic discursive sphere are highlighted.
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Drake, Darren, and mikewood@deakin edu au. "Secularism exhausted?: Non-Indigenous postcolonial discourses and the question of aboriginal religion." Deakin University. School of Communication and Creative Arts, 2002. http://tux.lib.deakin.edu.au./adt-VDU/public/adt-VDU20051017.152649.
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Rao, Badrinath Krishna. "Religious minorities under Hindu hegemony, the political economy of secularism in India." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape10/PQDD_0020/NQ46906.pdf.
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Damar, E. "Kemalism and hegemony : the Turkish experience with secularism in the post-1990s." Thesis, University of Essex, 2012. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.573731.
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Although Kemalist secularism is often considered as a distinctively unique secularization project, dominant approaches have the tendency of reducing it either to an imitation of idealized West-oriented secularism models, or to a necessary product of specific historical conditions of the Ottoman-Turkish context. This thesis questions these dominant tendencies for they run the risk of disregarding the creative and original interventions of the Kemalist elite through which a distinctively unique conception of secularism, secular identity, and secular subjectivity is formed in Turkey. This thesis suggests that without studying the ideological and subjectivity dimensions, the specificity and complexity of Kemalist secularism cannot be explored adequately. Accordingly, it argues that Kemalist secularism is a distinctively unique modality of secularism because it came into existence in and through the operationalization of a peculiar ideological force, which I call the Orientalist fantasy. Chapter 1 introduces the poststructuralist hegemonic approach and poststructuralist discourse analysis that I employed in this thesis to study what I call the hegemonic formation and operationalization of Kemalist secularism. Drawing on the discourses of the first generation Kemalist elites with special reference to the enactment of the Hat Law in the early Republican era (1923-1938), chapter 2 discusses what is meant by the Orientalist fantasy, and the historical conditions of its emergence. Drawing on the Kemalist secularist discourses on the so-called 'new veiling question', chapter 3 discusses the operational force and main characteristics of the Orientalist fantasy in post1990s Turkey. By introducing the categories of emotional affiliation and structures of feeling, chapters 4 and 5 discuss the endurance of the Orientalist fantasy. Drawing on the Kemalist secularist discourses on the so-called the February 28th (1997) 'postmodern coup' in chapter 4, and on the rise of the 'new Islamic' Justice and Development Party government in chapter 5, I introduce harassment and fear as two central structures of feeling that endure the Orientalist fantasy. The concluding chapter summarizes the main arguments of the thesis, incorporates the normative and ideological implications of the analysis, explicates the advances of the poststructuralist approach over dominant approaches in studying the Turkish experience with secularism, and introduces sorts of research questions the thesis opens up for future research.
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CARO, BRUNO LOYOLA DEL. "SECULARISM IN THE BRAZILIAN STATE, RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND TAX IMMUNITY OF TEMPLES." PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO, 2014. http://www.maxwell.vrac.puc-rio.br/Busca_etds.php?strSecao=resultado&nrSeq=29253@1.
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PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIROO presente estudo aborda o tema da conexão religião-tributação, em especial a previsão constitucional brasileira da laicidade, liberdade religiosa e a observância de preceitos da imunidade tributária nos templos de qualquer culto no corpo constitucional. Pretende-se analisar, desde a sua concepção, o instituto imunitário a partir do paradigma histórico-constitucional da existência da liberdade religiosa como fundamento da limitação ao poder de tributar os templos religiosos. O presente trabalho discute ainda uma proposta de Emenda à Constituição apresentada em 1993, que pretendia suprimir do texto constitucional as imunidades tributárias, bem como a decisão do Supremo Tribunal Federal que enfrentou o tema em Recurso Extraordinário. Embora com divergências entre ministros e fundamentos, a decisão ampliou os entendimentos da referida imunidade tributária religiosa. Finalmente, examina-se o modelo tributante introduzido legalmente na Itália para discussão sobre o que de fato merece o reconhecimento constitucional, conforme o que em época fora objeto de pretensão pelo constituinte originário. Com isto, pretende-se buscar uma compreensão adequada dos princípios contidos na Constituição Federal sobre a questão.
The present study addresses the conection between religion and taxation, specially the Brazilian constitutional provision of secularism, religious freedom and the observance of the precepts of tax immunity in the temples of any worship in the constitutional body. We intend to analyze, since its conception, the tax immunity from the historical and constitutional paradigm of the existence of religious freedom as the basis of limiting the power of taxing religious temples. This paper also discusses a proposed Amendment to the Constitution presented in 1993, that intended to suppress the tax immunities from the constitutional text, as well as the decision of the Supreme Court that faced the issue in Extraordinary Appeal.. Although with differences among ministers and fundaments, the decision broadened the understandings of the mentioned religious tax immunity. Finally, the taxing model legally introduced in Italy is examined, discussing what actually deserves constitutional recognition, according to what in that time was intended by the original legislator. This way, we intend to pursue a proper understanding of the principles contained in the Federal Constitution on the issue.
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Källeskog, Anna. "The "Good" Faces of Faith : Secularism and Counter-Narratives in Religious Peacebuilding." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Statsvetenskapliga institutionen, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-416773.
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There is an increasing interest in international relations to engage with religious actors for peacebuilding purposes. This development is an example of what is referred to as a restorative narrative, which responds to a current 'resurgence' of religion in the political sphere by prescribing the restoration of benevolent forms religion in international politics, to counteract 'dangerous' religion. This narrative reinforces secularist dichotomies of 'good' and 'bad religion', or what Elizabeth Shakman Hurd calls 'The Two Faces of Faith' (Hurd 2017, 100). As many peacebuilding efforts take place in the MENA-region, where western secularism and liberalism are often met with suspicion, this thesis aims to investigate how secularist narratives are reproduced and challenged within religious peacebuilding in the region. It does so through discourse analysis of three international and transnational organizations of 'secular' and faith-based character. The result indicates that secularist narratives still set the frames for what role religion is allowed to play in peacebuilding, but also that faith-based actors can challenge secularist narratives in several ways. Furthermore, the result shows that in international discourses, secularist or non-secularist categories are not always clear-cut, and even narratives that challenge secularism might not challenge the liberal peace paradigm at large.
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Johnson, Seth. "HISTORY, MYTH AND SECULARISM ACROSS THE BORDERLANDS: THE WORK OF MICHAEL CHABON." Kent State University / OhioLINK, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1392155557.
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Shahid, Tahrat Naushaba. "Imaginary lines? : 'Islam', 'secularism', and the politics of family laws in Bangladesh." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:5d092800-be1a-42bf-8632-e733889ada15.
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With the world's fourth-largest Muslim population, Bangladesh is an important case study in the exploration of what it means to be a 'secular' country with Islam as a state religion. One important mechanism through which to analyse the relationship between religion and the state is through the country's laws, and family laws are especially significant in that they represent the state's determination of which long-standing social and religious practices find their way into legislation as a representation of societal values. As with many other countries with significant Muslim populations, personal status legislation has remained relatively static in the years following independence, despite attempts at change. Inspired by studies of negotiations between state and civil society actors in bringing about changes in law, this study analyses the evolution of family laws for Muslims in Bangladesh, revealing a range of voices using such laws in their negotiations between competing notions of 'Islam' and 'secularism' and their role in governance. Using parliamentary and Supreme Court records, newspaper archives, expert interviews, and secondary literature, I show that there has been little change in personal status legislation beyond procedural simplification, and that the judiciary and policymakers have had a tendency to support freedom of religious practice except in family laws. This study explores why this is the case, and focuses on the discourse around the National Women Development Policy and its clause on property and inheritance as the greatest point of contention in enhancing women's rights in family laws.
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Kuru, Ahmet T. "Dynamics of secularism : state-religion relations in the United States, France, and Turkey /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/10720.
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Retoulas, Christos. "Religion and secularisation in the Byzantine-Ottoman continuum : the case of Turkish secularism." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2011. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.543618.
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Altorf, Marije. "Iris Murdoch and the art of imagination : imaginative philosophy as response to secularism." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2004. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1677/.
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This dissertation examines the work of the British philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch. A centre concern of this work is a question Murdoch poses more than once: ‘How can we make ourselves morally better?” This question is understood to initiate a form of philosophy which is critical of much of its tradition and its understanding of reasoning and argument. It also recognises its dependence on other disciplines. Murdoch develops this form of philosophy in reply to the cultural phenomenon of secularisation. In the absence of God, she attributes tasks to philosophy formerly performed by religion. Most importantly, she advocates a concept of transcendent reality in philosophical discourse. This reality is the Good. She finds that in order to do so, she has to reconsider philosophy’s central faculty of reason. Drawing on literary, philosophical and theological sources, Murdoch develops an understanding of reason and argument in which images, imagery and imagination are central. This study has three objectives. It first aims to present Murdoch as an imaginative philosopher by exploring the role of literature in her philosophical writing. In doing so, it challenges various presuppositions about philosophy, held by both philosophers and non-philosophers. Its second aims is to reconsider these assumptions in general terms. This part draws significantly on the work of Le Doeuff. In particular, it considers the presence of imagery in philosophy as well as philosophy’s assumed neutrality, which has arisen from its long affiliation with science. Thirdly, the thesis presents a reconsideration of the notion of imagination. This notion is often involved in the interdisciplinary debate between theology, philosophy and the arts. Murdoch’s notion of imagination challenges two important assumptions. By releasing imagination from the limited corner of art, it first challenges a strict distinction between literary and systematic writing. By introducing fantasy as the bad opposite of good imagination, it secondly critically assesses unconditional ‘praises of imagination’.
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Ardiç, Nurullah. "Islam and the politics of secularism the abolition of the Caliphate (1908-1924) /." Diss., Restricted to subscribing institutions, 2009. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1835285801&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=1564&RQT=309&VName=PQD.
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Ceriello, Caroline K. "Growing Against the Grain: Turkish and Iranian Youth on Religious-Secular Tensions." Thesis, Boston College, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/2345/bc-ir:102341.
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Thesis advisor: Ali BanuaziziThe purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate the explicit societal and underlying political consequences of heavy-handed state measures to cultivate secularism and Islamism in Turkey and Iran respectively. The elites in each country have failed to indoctrinate the majority of the youth, who seek to change the status quo. A brief historical review of each country is provided in order to properly understand their sociopolitical environments. In Turkey, the majority of the educated youth demand the right to exercise their religious rights, including veiling in public spaces. In Iran, on the other hand, the young people refuse to abide by the various rules and government-imposed obligations. In both countries the boundaries between what is a private decision and public obligation is ever shifting. The youth, comprising the largest segment of its population in both countries, possess with enormous power and potential. The elitist status quo, whether supported by Kemalists in Turkey or Islamists in Iran, must ultimately bend to the will of the youth
Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2013
Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: International Studies Honors Program
Discipline: International Studies