ABSTRACT

What is the place of religion in a pluralist democracy? The continuous presence of religion in the public sphere has raised anew normative and practical issues related to the role of religion in a democratic polity, generating spirited political debates in Western and non-Western contexts. Contemporary Political Philosophy and Religion provides an advanced introduction to, and a critical appraisal of, the major schools of political thought with a focus on the relationship between democracy and religion. Key features of this book include:

  • Analyses of different political traditions: liberalism, republicanism, deliberative democracy, feminism, postmodernism, multiculturalism, and interculturalism;
  • Critical discussions of key contemporary philosophers, such as John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas, Richard Rorty, Charles Taylor, Susan Moller Okin, Martha Nussbaum, Will Kymlicka, Chandran Kukathas, and Bhiku Parekh;
  • A pluralist approach that questions the strict divide between analytical and continental political philosophy;
  • Discussion on the place of religion in politics from multiple perspectives by drawing on a plurality of political contexts, both Western and non-Western;
  • Analyses of legal and political cases related to different religious traditions, for example, Islam, Confucianism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Hinduism.

This comprehensive text will be of great use to students of religion and politics in the fields of political and legal theory, and religious and theological studies, while also offering critical insights and arguments that will be of interest to the experts in the field.

chapter |20 pages

Introduction

A plea for complexity

chapter 1|30 pages

Political liberalism, public reason, and religion

John Rawls

chapter 2|23 pages

Public reason debated

Religion, citizenship, and inclusion

chapter 3|31 pages

Postsecularism, translation, and religion

Jürgen Habermas

chapter 4|37 pages

Republicanism

Between non-domination, the common good, and civil religion

chapter 5|32 pages

Charles Taylor’s hermeneutics of modernity

Secularization, recognition, and inclusive liberalism

chapter 6|32 pages

Multiculturalism and its critics

From rise to fall?

chapter 7|42 pages

The conundrum of gender equality and religion

Between the autonomy and the capability approach

chapter 8|29 pages

Democracy and postmodernism

Richard Rorty and Gianni Vattimo

chapter |2 pages

Cases