The Philosophy of Reenchantment (Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy)

This book presents a philosophical study of the idea of reenchantment and its merits in the interrelated fields of philosophical anthropology, ethics, and ontology. It features chapters from leading contributors to the debate about reenchantment, including Charles Taylor, John Cottingham, Akeel Bilgrami, and Jane Bennett. The chapters examine neglected and contested notions such as enchantment, transcendence, interpretation, attention, resonance, and the sacred or reverence-worthy―notions that are crucial to human self-understanding but have no place in a scientific worldview. They also explore the significance of adopting a reenchanting perspective for debates on major concepts such as nature, naturalism, God, ontology, and disenchantment. Taken together, they demonstrate that there is much to be gained from working with a more substantial and affirmative concept of reenchantment, understood as a fundamental existential orientation towards what is seen as meaningful and of value. __The Philosophy of Reenchantment__ will be of interest to scholars and advanced students in philosophy―especially those working in moral philosophy, metaphysics, philosophy of religion, theology, religious studies, and sociology. This book presents a philosophical study of the idea of reenchantment and its merits in the interrelated fields of philosophical anthropology, ethics, and ontology. It features chapters from leading contributors to the debate about reenchantment, including Charles Taylor, John Cottingham, Akeel Bilgrami, and Jane Bennett. The chapters examine neglected and contested notions such as enchantment, strong evaluation, transcendence, resonance, perceptual experience, religious meaning, moral experience, interpretation, attention, and the sacred or reverence-worthy; notions that are crucial to human self-understanding but have no place in a scientific worldview. They also explore the significance of adopting a reenchanting perspective for debates on major concepts such as disenchantment, realism, nature, and God. In this way, this volume seeks to put the concept of reenchantment firmly on the contemporary philosophical agenda by showing the extent to which it connects with central questions about agency, value, metaphysics, and religion. The Philosophy of Reenchantment will be of interest to scholars and advanced students in philosophy (especially those working in moral philosophy, metaphysics, philosophy of religion, and social theory), theology, religious studies, and sociology. Cover 1 Half Title 2 Series 3 Title 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 Acknowledgments 8 Introduction: Varieties of Reenchantment in a Disenchanted World 10 Part I Reenchantment and (A)Theism 24 1 What Is Reenchantment? An Interview With Charles Taylor 26 2 Religion Without Magic: Responding to the Natural World 47 3 Might There Be Secular Enchantment? 63 Part II Genealogies of Reenchantment 88 4 Did Disenchantment Ever Happen? Retrieving the Forgotten Story of Transcendence 90 5 Theorizing Reenchantment Across Different Value Spheres 114 6 Reenchantment as Resonance 141 Part III Working With Reenchantment 168 7 The Eyes of a Child 170 8 Nature, Enchantment, and God 187 9 Reenchantment and the Risk of Reification: On Taking Morality (Too) Seriously 204 10 Detachment and Attention 229 11 Moral Absolutes and Neo-Aristotelian Ethical Naturalism 248 Epilogue: On the Call From Outside 269 List of Contributors 280 Index 284 This book presents a philosophical study of the idea of reenchantment and its connections with philosophical anthropology, ethics, and ontology. The chapters examine contested notions such as enchantment, transcendence, interpretation, attention, resonance, and the sacred or reverence-worthy.