This article seeks to demonstrate that in his recent reading of the role of religion in the postsecular public realm, Habermas overlooks a most fundamental dimension of religion: its power to symbolically institute communities. For his part, Gauchet starts from a vision of religion in which this fundamental dimension is central. In his evaluation of the role of religion in postsecular society, he therefore arrives at results which are very different from those of Habermas. However, I believe that Gauchet too (...) underestimates the extent to which religion’s power of symbolic community institution has remained intact within modern, postsecular society. In support of this position, I show how relatively heterogeneous phenomena within Western societies, such as the renewed importance of religion in the public realm, the revival of certain forms of nationalism and the associated demand for recognition of group rights and hence for forms of legal pluralism, may prefigure a new transformation of the public realm. (shrink)

European constitutional traditions share a commitment to freedom of conscience and religion, but differ on their interpretation of whether such freedoms do or do not require a clear cut separation of state and church. Weiler has advocated that the writing of a Constitution for the European Union is a very apt moment to reconsider the conceptualization of freedom of conscience and religion. On constitutional and historical grounds, he has advocated that a reference to Christian values should be made in the (...) preamble of the European fundamental law, and that this will be the alternative most respectful to the pluralistic national solutions, ranging from republican non-confessionality to the establishment of an official church. But contrary to what Weiler argues, the drafting of the constitution of the European Union is not bound by the present shape of European constitutional traditions; moreover, it is hard to conclude that the present common constitutional traditions require an explicit reference to Christianity to be included in the text. Furthermore, the claim that the individual and collective identities of Europeans are unavoidably shaped by Christian values is only tenable if we uphold a rather simplistic relation between history, memory, and identity. Finally, once one moves from law and history to practical reasoning, one finds that there are good substantive reasons why our collective identity should not contain reference to Christian values. (shrink)

Our democracies presently face a set of unique challenges. In this article we argue that the current crisis needs to be understood as resulting from the convergence of two historical transformations: the paradigm of boundlessness; and what we term “endividualismo”, a novel mutation of individualism in the context of the financial age. The result is a novel political reality where individual rights are ever-expanding and the opportunities for collective action have shrunk to the point of impossibility. The resulting powerlessness of (...) the polity demands new answers: we need to reconfigure the relationship between citizens and political power. (shrink)

There are two basic positions where tolerance as political strategy and moral viewpoint is rejected or made redundant. We are hostile to tolerance when we hold that we are defending an objective truth—religious or secular—which should also be defended and maintained by means of political and legal power. And tolerance become superfluous also when the affirmation of plurality becomes total, and tolerance identical to a vive la difference. As recent developments in my own country—the Netherlands—have demonstrated, the political outcome of (...) this last position is remarkably enough not necessarily an all-inclusive relativistic tolerance. It may just as well be one of intolerance towards ‘believers’ of all kinds, in short: tolerance becomes polemical and belligerent. Turning to religious fundamentalism or ultra-orthodoxy could then become a possible reaction to this relativistic and subjectivist position, as demonstrated in Isaac Bashevis Singer’s novel The Penitent. Between these two positions of hostility or indifference towards tolerance, we can situate that democratic attitude which may rightly be called ‘tolerance’. As ethical position, the tolerant citizen accepts the democratic disjunction between my truth and the symmetrical justice between citizens. As political strategy, a tolerant democratic regime is based upon a political act of exclusion of what I will here call ‘political fundamentalism’. (shrink)

Processes of globalization have transformed the religious field, raising questions of identity for different religious traditions and their relations with the State, especially in European countries. Religious pluralism remains in most cases the most important characteristic of the current religious situation. This article reviews the origins of the phenomenon and the part it has played in the study of the sociology of religion, and examines the legal and political conditions that form the backdrop to pluralism. The author then considers some (...) consequences, taking as an example the `new religion' of the internet. Finally, the author considers the view of fundamental-ist movements as anti-modernist reactions to the identity crises experienced by religions such as Islam in the face of globalization. (shrink)

The current reorganisation of universities is part of a European policy aimed at strengthening Europe’s position with regard to the emerging global knowledge economy. The transformations in view of this overall goal are hardly accompanied by a critical discussion about the function or role of universities within and for society. The common assumption that universities offer a specific ‘general education’ by linking teaching to research, goes back to the modern university idea as conceived by Wilhelm von Humboldt. This article intends (...) to show that philosophical attempts to restore the modern university model as a normative standard for criticising actual developments at European universities, have become problematic for contextual reasons that beg the basic assumptions of this model. Instead of answering the question of the ‘public role of universities’, the article rather attempts to clarify the problems with which this question is connected, from a political–philosophical perspective. It is argued that the difficulties in which the contemporary discourse about universities constantly becomes entangled, reflect more fundamental impasses and even contradictions that the modern democratic project is experiencing today. (shrink)