Disenchantment is a key term in the self-understanding of modernity. But what exactly does this concept mean? What was its original meaning when Max Weber introduced it? And can the conventional meaning or Max Weber's view really be defended, given the present state of knowledge about the history of religion? In The Power of the Sacred, Hans Joas develops the fundamentals of a new sociological theory of religion by first reconstructing
existing theories, from the eighteenth century to the present. Through a critical reading and reassessment of key texts in the three empirical disciplines of history, psychology, and sociology of religion,
including the works of David Hume, J.G. Herder, Friedrich Schleiermacher, William James, Emile Durkheim, and Ernst Troeltsch, Joas presents an understanding of religion that lays the groundwork for a thorough study of Max Weber's views on disenchantment. After deconstructing Weber's highly ambiguous use of the concept, Joas proposes an alternative to the narratives of disenchantment and secularization which have dominated debates on the topic. He constructs a novel interpretation that takes
into account the dynamics of ever new sacralizations, their normative evaluation in the light of a universalist morality as it first emerged in the "Axial Age," and the dangers of the misuse of religion
in connection with the formation of power. Built upon the human experience of self-transcendence, rather than human cognition or cultural discourses, The Power of the Sacred challenges both believers and non-believers alike to rethink the defining characteristics of Western modernity.
Disenchantment is a key term in the self-understanding of modernity. But what exactly does this concept mean? What was its original meaning when Max Weber introduced it? And can the conventional meaning or Max Weber's view really be defended, given the present state of knowledge about the history of religion? In The Power of the Sacred, Hans Joas develops the fundamentals of a new sociological theory of religion by first reconstructing
existing theories, from the eighteenth century to the present. Through a critical reading and reassessment of key texts in the three empirical disciplines of history, psychology, and sociology of religion,
including the works of David Hume, J.G. Herder, Friedrich Schleiermacher, William James, Emile Durkheim, and Ernst Troeltsch, Joas presents an understanding of religion that lays the groundwork for a thorough study of Max Weber's views on disenchantment. After deconstructing Weber's highly ambiguous use of the concept, Joas proposes an alternative to the narratives of disenchantment and secularization which have dominated debates on the topic. He constructs a novel interpretation that takes
into account the dynamics of ever new sacralizations, their normative evaluation in the light of a universalist morality as it first emerged in the "Axial Age," and the dangers of the misuse of religion
in connection with the formation of power. Built upon the human experience of self-transcendence, rather than human cognition or cultural discourses, The Power of the Sacred challenges both believers and non-believers alike to rethink the defining characteristics of Western modernity.
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1. History of Religion as Critique of Religion? David Hume
and the Consequences
Chapter 2. Religious Experience and the Theory of Signs
Chapter 3. Ritual and the Sacred. On the Anthropology of Ideal
Formation
Chapter 4. Multiple Forms of Ideal Formation or Process of
Disenchantment? Attempts at Synthesis by Ernst Troeltsch and Max
Weber
Chapter 5. Transcendence as Reflexive Sacredness. The 'Axial Age'
as a Turning Point in Religious History
Chapter 6. Fields of Tension. A New Interpretation of Max Weber's
'Intermediate Reflection'
Chapter 7. The Sacred and Power. Collective Self-Sacralization and
Ways of Overcoming it
Bibliography
Index
Hans Joas is Ernst Troeltsch Professor for the Sociology of
Religion at the Humboldt University of Berlin and Visiting
Professor of Sociology and Social Thought at the University of
Chicago. Some of his other books in English include G.H. Mead, A
Contemporary Re-examination of His Thought, Pragmatism and Social
Theory, The Creativity of Action, The Genesis of Values, War and
Modernity, The Sacredness
of the Person: A New Genealogy of Human Rights, and Faith as an
Option: Possible Futures for Christianity. He has also published
two books with Wolfgang Knoebl: Social Theory: Twenty Introductory
Lectures and War in Social Thought: Hobbes to the Present and
has
edited several volumes, including The Axial Age and Its
Consequences (with Robert Bellah).
a substantive analysis
*Bernice Martin, Church Times*
A thoroughly argued, intriguing book.
*Michael McCallion, Catholic Books Review*
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