Description
Book SynopsisEvaluates modernity's wager, namely, the gambit to liberate the modern individual from external social and religious norms by supplanting them with the rational self as its own moral authority. This book argues that 'the fundamentalist doctrine of enlightened reason has called into being its own nemesis' in the forms of ethnic and racial politics.
Trade Review"Mr. Seligman's analysis of modernity is insightful and thought-provoking."--Damon Linker, The Wall Street Journal "This book is an erudite critique of existing traditions of Western thought, especially in sociology... [It] offers an excellent critique of the hole that social science has gotten into in trying to understand a rational yet authoritative social order."--Choice "A very valuable contribution to the sociological study of religion, with strong relevance to philosophy and theology as well. Any work that can connect such diverse domains deserves to be applauded."--Steven D. Boyer, Journal of the American Academy of Religion "This very timely book is about authority and its connection to the constitution of selfhood and to related notions of community and the sacred. Adam Seligman proposes a very bold thesis... He develops it with substantive and nuanced arguments."--Thomas A. Byrnes, Journal of Religion
Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowlegments ix Introduction 3 Chapter One: The Self in the Social Sciences 15 Chapter Two: Authority and the Self 34 Chapter Three: Heteronomy and Responsibility 60 Chapter Four: The Self Internalized 87 Chapter Five: Tolerance and Tradition 124 Notes 143 Bibliography 159 Index 173
