Secularization

Ulrich Steinvorth is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hamburg, Germany. Steinvorth has written on Wittgenstein and Marx, moral and political philosophy, and applied ethics and metaphysics. He has taught in Germany and other European countries and in Turkey, Japan and China.

• Introduction. - Chapter 1: Three theses. - Chapter 2: Similar views.- PART 1: A NEW SECULARIZATION THESIS.- Chapter 3: Intrinsic goals and sphere-immanent rationalities.- Chapter 4: Religion and the absolute.- Chapter 5: Authenticity, morality, and the post-Enlightenment absolute.- Chapter 6: Authenticity in ancient China and Rome.- Chapter 7: Montaigne’s authenticity.- Chapter 8: Mortality and Montaignean authenticity.- Chapter 9: A naturalistic proof of the validity of the authenticity command.- Chapter 10: Three comments on the naturalistic proof.- Chapter 11: The thesis. PART 2: OBJECTIONS.- Chapter 12: Religion cannot be perfected, least of all by authenticity.- Chapter 13: Claims on the absolute must be infallible.- Chapter 14: Hegel’s red herring.- Chapter 15: Rational metaphysics cannot relate to the absolute.- Chapter 16 Secular societies can do without anything absolute.- Chapter 17: Secularization is a unique Western development.- Epilogue.- Bibliography.- Index.