Jurgen Habermas and Charles Taylor

[xibalba]

 

Three books, two different approaches, to read as a profound reflexion on the historicity  of our post-secular age and its postmetaphysical implications. In case, for those who haven´t yet read them.

 

Jurgen Habermas

http://books.google.com/books?id=ZBXIDTLiG2MC&printsec=frontcov...

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=dxN17kF0mhMC&printsec=frontcov...

 

Charles Taylor

http://books.google.com/books?id=hWRXYY3HRFoC&printsec=frontcov...

 

Happy holidays or joyeuses Pâques

[Balder]

Thank you for sharing these, X.  I've read some of the essays in the second Habermas book, but I hadn't seen the first one before.  Taylor has also been on my to-read list for awhile.  I will pick these up.

 

Happy holidays to you as well.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Back in '06 we had a discussion of Habermas related to Wilber's interpretation at Open Integral blog with several participants. Here are the links: part 1 and part 2.

[kelamuni]

I'm watching the movie Ordet on television (see: http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2003/cteq/ordet-2/) while reading Taylor. BAhahaha. How's that for synchronicity?

[kelamuni]

Anyone others masochists interested in slogging through 700 pages of dialectical argumentation might also like to read Hans Blumenberg's Legitimacy of the Modern Age:http://books.google.ca/books?id=pmKWuUz4OTgC&printsec=frontcove... hahaha. who sez grand narratives are dead. Every fews years lately some tome has appeared imitatio de Hegel.

synopsis and commentary: http://www.mmisi.org/pr/19_01/mcknight.pdf

[xibalba]

Ciao kela

 

In another hand, I see the bridge created by Habermas in his conversation with that rather very conservative pope a benefit for the evolution of spirituality  and its shy attempt to be integrated to the organized traditions seen in a larger context.

I mean what can KW et al. do other than offering a smorgåsbord of various traditions out rooted from their specific context, and bringing them together into a coktail of so called integral studies which mostly are confined to a western educated "elite" as usual.

 

When I asked my mother´s abbot of her Paris church (the great Babylon IOW) about if he knew Ken Wilber, the answer was: "pardon, comment s´appelle-t-il? je ne comprends pas." Yes, so it is with our "Einstein of consciousness" in the mind of a french catholic theologian. KW who tried to impress the "new age yanks" with his very narrow knowledge of medieval scholastic (St Buonaventura, Thomas Aquino), even by quoting two famous theologians of the period of the french king Louis XIV, Bossuet and Fenélon, all of that in order to bring some air of legitimate seriosity in his discourse. The dude is perhaps known only to just few obscure theology reseachers of the Vatican. 

 

 

 

[kelamuni]

the sense i get from both taylor and habermas in these works is a kind of lamentation on a certain ineffectiveness within the public sphere, something they would like to see change. perhaps they see the possibilty of a kind of "mobilzation of forces" among religionists the way the southern baptist convention and other fundamentalists and evangelicals were courted and mobilized by the republican right (particulary by scumbags like jack abramoff and ralph reed) in the eighties so as to elect ronnie raygun and bush junior.

 

the synopsis on blumenberg given above gives some schrift of the role of pico and ficino as per the making modern man. kenny might fall into that line -- a kinda modern day prisca theologi hermeticist. of course neoclassicists like taylor will not have heard of kenny; too esoteric and spicey a kebab for boys like charles fed the meat and potatoes of augustine and aquinas by jesuits.

 

taylor, a catholic, is saying, ''we're still here," and habermas is saying "... and those guys should not be left out of the conversation."

[xibalba]

welll maybe that´s the issue, KW is not known in circles where he should be. Profound social changes are always the core of every religion.

Sometimes, I don´t like KW´s mal placé metaphorical speech, particularly when he tells that Buddha is profoundly "republican", because he only believes the cause of suffering is to be found within, but after enlightenment he becomes profoundly democrat when social changes- or outer causality-  (the displacement of the brahmin dictature) are too be the main issues. This is sort of approximation is unfortunate because the ancient periods can´t be automatically equated to our modern democratic rules of behavior. As Durkheim mentioned long ago, there is a non-sense to too easily compare societies based on mechanical solidarity (the days of Gautama) and the highly differentiated, complex, organic solidarity of our contemporary western societies.

Even if grosso modo there is an element of truth in what KW said, there is still a huge gap in interpretation to not trespass.I agree with your summary.

 

 

 

[kelamuni]

the analysis given by taylor pp. 505-515 is interesting:  the questioning today of the neo-durkheimian interweaving of religion and state; but people still seek unity and wholeness; however they do so via a 'sprituality' emphasizing the 'expression' of individuality; but this is typically divorced from 'organized religion' (adi da's 'religious provincialism,' etc. witness the number of people on facebook who call themselves 'spiritual but not religious'); but this trend at the same time reflects a breakdown of the exercize of 'praxis'; as well as a loss of dentity with a group particularly groups with a political affilication; although, again at the same time, there will always be those religious types among the masses who can be manipulated by the likes of ralph reed and jack abramoff (he cites milosevic and the india BJP).

 

[xibalba]

Sure  of course that sort of problems will always exist we see that evryday in our poiticl adebate in France for or against the application of the strict model of republican secular legislation in the public sphere. This sort attitude is sort of rigid because it is impeding important debate issues on ohow to integrate for example islam in France, meaning a post-secular postmodern interpretation of the core texts, and that is the basic innovative idea of Habermas, to strenghten the ethical dimension of the public sphere and a abetter comprehension of the role of spirituality integrated to organized religion in the lives of popel, a truce calim in other ways since the cruzade against the albigeois crusade and the "reconquista" in Spain at the end of "enlightened" scholastic islam.

[Mary W.]

Synchronicity strikes again: I was also watching this movie when it came on late last night. But alas, I fell asleep.

kelamuni said:

I'm watching the movie Ordet on television (see: http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2003/cteq/ordet-2/) while reading Taylor. BAhahaha. How's that for synchronicity?

[kelamuni]

Dreyer's notion of 'incarnation' -- how we are fusion of spirit and body and not just "light beings trapped inside husks," as in gnostic dualism -- struck me as very similar to taylor's life affirming ideas of incarnation (vs. the excarnation of asceticism); also the idea of the 'intrusion' of the divine into everyday life seemed similar. The polarities put to use by both are also similar, which may be no coincidence since they are familar to many of us: the life affirming religion of Morten vs. the stifling fundamentalism of Peter; the institutional religion of the pastor vs. the naturalistic religion of Maren the girl; the personal faith (and kooky solipsistic mysticism) of Johannes vs. the public piety of the other religionists; and the scientific materialism of the doctor and skepticism of the husband vs the religious faith of everyone else. I'm not sure Dreyer and Taylor would agree with each other entirely though. Dreyer seems to incline toward the naturalistic faith of the girl while Taylor appears to be more open to some form of institutional religion.

Mary W. said:

Synchronicity strikes again: I was also watching this movie when it came on late last night. But alas, I fell asletoep.

kelamuni said:

I'm watching the movie Ordet on television (see: http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2003/cteq/ordet-2/) while reading Taylor. BAhahaha. How's that for synchronicity?

[kelamuni]

...an alterantive to angela merkel's neo-inquistion ala queen isabel I of castile? indeed. hahaha.

xibalba said:

Sure  of course that sort of problems will always exist we see that evryday in our poiticl adebate in France for or against the application of the strict model of republican secular legislation in the public sphere. This sort attitude is sort of rigid because it is impeding important debate issues on ohow to integrate for example islam in France, meaning a post-secular postmodern interpretation of the core texts, and that is the basic innovative idea of Habermas, to strenghten the ethical dimension of the public sphere and a abetter comprehension of the role of spirituality integrated to organized religion in the lives of popel, a truce calim in other ways since the cruzade against the albigeois crusade and the "reconquista" in Spain at the end of "enlightened" scholastic islam.