Premium
The spectre of Godlessness: Making sense of secularity
Author(s) -
Eipper Chris
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
the australian journal of anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.245
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 1757-6547
pISSN - 1035-8811
DOI - 10.1111/j.1757-6547.2011.00104.x
Subject(s) - secularity , secularization , secularism , epistemology , modernity , argument (complex analysis) , sociology , philosophy of religion , philosophy , immanence , late modernity , religious studies , theology , social science , islam , biochemistry , chemistry
‘What does it mean to say that we live in a secular age?’ asks the philosopher Charles Taylor from a Christian (Catholic) perspective. This paper critiques key aspects of the way he seeks to answer the question, doing so from a methodologically agnostic anthropological standpoint. It focuses on three key elements of his argument: his construal of the problem of immanence, his account of secularisation and his treatment of science as an (inadequate) antidote to religion. The critique contains within it the ingredients for an alternative, anthropologically grounded approach to secularity, secularism and secularisation. In this spirit, it moves towards examining actually existing secularity as a syncretic phenomenon that is, in significant respects, definitive of modernity.