For better or worse, Rorty has shaped the trajectory of academic philosophy. A decade after his passing, his legacy is ever present, especially in context of the growth of the far right, the struggle over the meaning of justice and equity, and the ecological crises we face. Edited by Randall Auxier, Eli Kramer, and Krzysztof Piotr Skowronski, Rorty and Beyond brings together leading international philosophers from the United States and Europe to reevaluate Rorty’s legacy and explore what l...

As recent headlines reveal, conflicts and debates around the world increasingly involve secularism. National borders and traditional religions cannot keep people in tidy boxes as political struggles, doctrinal divergences, and demographic trends are sweeping across regions and entire continents. And secularity is increasing in society, with a growing number of people in many regions having no religious affiliation or lacking interest in religion. Simultaneously, there is a resurgence of re...

In Praise of Doubt explores how to survive the political, moral, and religious challenges raised by the extreme poles of relativism and fundamentalism.In this insightful and thought-provoking book, two world-renowned social scientists, Peter L. Berger and Anton C. Zijderveld, ask and answer Big Questions, offering invaluable guidance on how to have convictions without becoming a fanatic."A book of great practical wisdom by authors who have pr...

This collection of essays presents groundbreaking work from an interdisciplinary group of leading theorists and scholars representing the fields of history, philosophy, political science, sociology, and anthropology. The volume will introduce readers to some of the most compelling new conceptual and theoretical understandings of secularism and the secular, while also examining socio-political trends involving the relationship between the religious and the secular from a variety of location...

In the new edition of this widely praised text, Alan Aldridge examines the complex realities of religious belief, practice and institutions. Religion is a powerful and controversial force in the contemporary world, even in supposedly secular societies. Almost all societies seek to cultivate religions and faith communities as sources of social stability and engines of social progress. They also try to combat real and imagined abuses and excess, regulating cults that brainwash vulnerable peo...

The number of nonreligious people has increased dramatically over the past several decades, yet scholarship on the nonreligious is severely lacking. In response to this critical gap in knowledge, The Nonreligious provides a comprehensive summation and analysis of existing social scientific research on secular people and societies. The authors present a thorough overview of existing knowledge while also drawing upon ongoing research and suggesting ways to improve our understanding ...

Religion is now high on the public agenda, with recent events focusing the world's attention on Islam in particular. This book provides a unique historical and comparative analysis of the place of religion in the emergence of modern secular society. Bryan S. Turner considers the problems of multicultural, multi-faith societies and legal pluralism in terms of citizenship and the state, with special emphasis on the problems of defining religion and the sacred in the secularisation debate. He...

The relationship between religion and human rights is both complex and inextricable. While most of the world's religions have supported violence, repression, and prejudice, each has also played a crucial role in the modern struggle for universal human rights. Most importantly, religions provide the essential sources and scales of dignity and responsibility, shame and respect, restraint and regret, restitution and reconciliation that a human rights regime needs to survive and flourish in an...

Conflicts involving religion have returned to the forefront of international relations. And yet political scientists and policymakers have continued to assume that religion has long been privatized in the West. This secularist assumption ignores the contestation surrounding the category of the "secular" in international politics. The Politics of Secularism in International Relations shows why this thinking is flawed, and provides a powerful alternative.Elizabeth Shakman Hu...

Religious concerns stand at the center of international politics, yet key paradigms in international relations, namely realism, liberalism, and constructivism, barely consider religion in their analysis of political subjects. The essays in this collection rectify this. Authored by leading scholars, they introduce models that integrate religion into the study of international politics and connect religion to a rising form of populist politics in the developing world.Contributors ide...

Why is religion still important? Can we be fully modern and fully religious?In this new edition, Davie follows up her discussion of the meaning of religion in modern society and considers how best to research and understand this relationship. Exploring the rapid movements within the sociology of religion today, this revised and updated book:• Describes the origins of the sociology of religion• Demystifies secularization as a process and a theory• Relates rel...

Wael B. Hallaq boldly argues that the "Islamic state," judged by any standard definition of what the modern state represents, is both impossible and inherently self-contradictory. Comparing the legal, political, moral, and constitutional histories of premodern Islam and Euro-America, he finds the adoption and practice of the modern state to be highly problematic for modern Muslims. He also critiques more expansively modernity's moral predicament, which renders impossible any project restin...