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CHARLES TAYLOR'S A SECULAR AGE AND SECULARIZATION IN EARLY MODERN GERMANY*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2011

IAN HUNTER
IAN HUNTER*
Affiliation:
Centre for the History of European Discourses, University of Queensland E-mail: i.hunter@uq.edu.au
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Extract

In this essay I discuss the historical adequacy of Charles Taylor's philosophical history of secularization, as presented in his A Secular Age. I do so by situating it in relation to the contextual historiography of secularization in early modern Europe, with a particular focus on developments in the German Empire. Considering how profoundly conceptions of secularization have been bound to competing religious and political programmes, we must begin our discussion by entertaining the possibility that modern philosophical and historiographic conceptions of secularization might themselves be outcrops of this unfinished competition. Peter Gordon has rightly observed that Taylor's philosophical history of secularization is a Catholic one, and that this is bound up with a specific (neo-Thomist) view of secularization as a theological and ecclesiological “disembedding” of rational subjectivity from its prior embodiment in a sacral body, community (church), and cosmos. Taylor delivers this history in his “reform master narrative”: that certain fundamental religious and cultural reforms or changes in early modern Europe wrought the secularization responsible for a modern epoch of “unbelief”.

Type
Essay
Information
Modern Intellectual History , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , November 2011 , pp. 621 - 646
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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References

1 Historiographic discussions of Taylor's book have been somewhat thin on the ground. But see Butler, J., “Disquieted History in A Secular Age”, in Warner, M., VanAntwerpen, J. and Calhoun, C., eds., Varieties of Secularism in A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA, 2010), 193–216Google Scholar; and J. Sheehan, “When Was Disenchantment? History and the Secular Age”, in ibid., 217–42.

2 Gordon, P. E., “The Place of the Sacred in the Absence of God: Charles Taylor's A Secular Age”, Journal of the History of Ideas 69 (2008), 647–73, 649–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cf. also Miner, R. C., “Suarez as Founder of Modernity? Reflections on a Topos in Recent Historiography”, History of Philosophy Quarterly 18 (2001), 17–36Google Scholar.

3 See, in particular, Sparn, W., “Kant's Doctrine of Atonement as a Theory of Subjectivity”, in Rossi, P. J. and Wreen, M., eds., Kant's Philosophy of Religion Reconsidered (Indianapolis, 1991), 103–12Google Scholar. See also Hunter, I., “Kant's Religion and Prussian Religious Policy”, Modern Intellectual History 2 (2005), 1–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and, more generally, Milbank, J., “The Invocation of Clio”, in his The Future of Love: Essays in Political Theology (Eugene, OR, 2009), 175–220, 187–97Google Scholar.

4 See Milbank, “The Invocation of Clio”, 175–81.

5 Heckel, M., “Das Säkularisierungsproblem in der Entwicklung des deutschen Staatskirchenrechts”, in Dilcher, G. and Staff, I., eds., Christentum und modernes Recht. Beiträge zum Problem der Säkularisation (Frankfurt am Main, 1984), 35–95Google Scholar; and Heckel, M., “Säkularisierung: Staatskirchenrechtliche Aspekte einer umstrittenen Kategorie”, in Martin Heckel Gesammelte Schriften: Staat, Kirche, Recht, Geschichte, ed. Schlaich, K. (Tübingen, 1989), 773–911Google Scholar.

6 Heckel, “Das Säkularisierungsproblem”, 35–49; Heckel, “Säkularisierung”, 773–6.

7 Heckel, “Das Säkularisierungsproblem”, 50–55; Heckel, “Säkularisierung”, 789–93.

8 For an overview see Stolleis, M., Geschichte des öffentlichen Rechts in Deutschland. Erster Band: Reichspublizistik und Policeywissenschaft 1600–1800 (Munich, 1988), 126–267Google Scholar.

9 Heckel, M., “Religionsbann und landesherrliches Kirchenregiment”, in Rublack, H.-C., ed., Die lutherische Konfessionalisierung in Deutschland (Gütersloh, 1992), 130–62Google Scholar.

10 Heckel, “Das Säkularisierungsproblem”, 59–72; Heckel, “Säkularisierung”, 793–89.

11 Heckel, “Säkularisierung”, 800–22.

12 Ibid., 822–62.

13 Taylor, C., A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA, 2007), 1–3Google Scholar. All further references given in text.

14 Jon Butler makes a similar point. See Butler, “Disquieted History”, 195–6.

15 For a helpful overview see Martin, D., On Secularization: Towards a Revised General Theory (Aldershot, 2005), 47–90Google Scholar.

16 On the theme of multiple modernities see Pocock, J. G. A., “Perceptions of Modernity in Early Modern Historical Thinking”, Intellectual History Review 17 (2007), 79–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Martin, D., “Secularisation and the Future of Christianity”, Journal of Contemporary Religion 20 (2005), 145–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and, more generally, Eisenstadt, S. N., “Mulitple Modernities”, Daedalus 129 (2000), 1–29Google Scholar.

17 For MacIntyre's version see MacIntyre, A., After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (Notre Dame, 1981)Google Scholar; and, for germane comment, Reames, K., “Metaphysics, History, and Moral Philosophy: The Centrality of the 1990 Aquinas Lecture to MacIntyre's Argument for Thomism”, The Thomist 62 (1998), 419–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 See Hunter, “Kant's Religion”.

19 See Miner, “Suarez as Founder of Modernity?”.

20 There is a strong similarity between this account of the origins of a secularized disciplinary society and that offered by the representatives of Anglo-Catholic “radical orthodoxy”. See Pickstock, C., After Writing (Oxford, 1998), 121–66Google Scholar; and J. Milbank, “A Closer Walk on the Wild Side”, in Warner, VanAntwerpen and Calhoun, Varieties of Secularism, 54–82, 71–9.

21 Taylor does not discuss the pre-eminent modern reception of Gibbon: J. G. A. Pocock's Barbarism and Religion, 4 vols. (Cambridge, 1999–2005).

22 See the fundamental studies by Häfner, R., “Jacob Thomasius und die Geschichte der Häresien”, in Vollhardt, F., ed., Christian Thomasius (1655–1728): Neue Forschungen im Kontext der Frühaufklärung (Tübingen, 1997), 141–64Google Scholar; Lehmann-Brauns, S., Weisheit in der Weltgeschichte: Philosophiegeschichte zwischen Barok und Aufklärung (Tübingen, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mulsow, M., Moderne aus dem Untergrund: Radikale Frühaufklärung in Deutschland 1680–1720 (Hamburg, 2002)Google Scholar; and volume 2 of Pocock's Barbarism and Religion, Narratives of Civil Government (Cambridge, 1999). See also Hunter, I., The Secularisation of the Confessional State: The Political Thought of Christian Thomasius (Cambridge, 2007), 61–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 See, in this regard, Taylor's critique of Quentin Skinner for refusing to conceive historical development in accordance with the temporal unfolding of transcendental truth: Taylor, C., “The Hermeneutics of Conflict”, in Tully, J., ed., Meaning and Context: Quentin Skinner and His Critics (Princeton, NJ, 1988), 218–28Google Scholar.

24 Clark, J. C. D., English Society 1660–1832: Religion, Ideology and Politics during the Ancien Regime, 2nd edn (Cambridge, 2000), 43–123Google Scholar; idem, “Protestantism, Nationalism, and National Identity, 1660–1832”, Historical Journal 43 (2000), 249–76.

25 For a revealing overview see von Friedeburg, R. and Seidler, M. J., “The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation”, in Lloyd, H. A., Burgess, G. and Hodson, S., eds., European Political Thought 1450–1700: Religion, Law and Philosophy (New Haven and London, 2008), 102–72Google Scholar.

26 Illuminating insights into this variety are provided in Dreitzel, H., “Politische Philosophie”, in Holzhey, H. and Schmidt-Biggemann, W., eds., Die Philosophie des 17. Jahrhunderts, Band 4: Das heilige Römische Reich deutscher Nation, Nord- und Ostmitteleuropa (Basel, 2001), 607–726Google Scholar; and W. Sparn, “Die Schulphilosophie in den lutherischen Territorien”, in ibid., 475–97.

27 For helpful overviews of the main forms of confessionalization see Schilling, H., “Confessional Europe”, in Brady, T. A. J., Oberman, H. A. and Tracy, J. D., eds., Handbook of European History 1400–1600: Latin Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation, vol. 2, Visions, Programs and Outcomes (Leiden, 1995), 641–682Google Scholar; Zeeden, E. W., Konfessionsbildung: Studien zur Reformation, Gegenreformation und katholischen Reform (Stuttgart, 1985)Google Scholar; and Rublack, Die lutherische Konfessionalisierung in Deutschland.

28 Reinhard, W., “Zwang zur Konfessionalisierung? Prolegomena zu einer Theorie des konfessionellen Zeitalters”, Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung 10 (1983), 257–77Google Scholar; Schilling, H., “Die Konfessionalisierung im Reich: Religiöser und gesellschaftlicher Wandel in Deutschland zwischen 1555 und 1620”, Historische Zeitschrift 246 (1988), 1–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Reinhard's and Schilling's approach has been criticized by scholars questioning their emphasis on the state and top-down confessionalization, and arguing instead for the self-confessionalizing capacity of local religious communities. See, for example, Head, R. C., “Catholics and Protestants in Graubünden: Confessional Discipline and Confessional Identities without an Early Modern State?”, German History 17 (1999), 321–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Schmidt, H. R., “Sozialdisziplinierung? Ein Pläydoyer für das Ende des Etatismus in der Konfessionalisierungforschung”, Historische Zeitschrift 265 (1997), 639–82Google Scholar. While significant, these modifications of the confessionalization paradigm have no direct bearing on the present argument.

29 The following remarks also largely apply to the similar claims of the “radical orthodoxy” writers mentioned in note 20 above.

30 For important analysis and evidence regarding the confessionalizing deployment of intellectualist metaphysical theologies in Catholic, Calvinist, and Lutheran programs, consult Holzhey and Schmidt-Biggemann, Die Philosophie des 17. Jahrhunderts, Band 4, specifically the sections by P. R. Blum and V. Mudroch, “Die Schulphilosophie in den katholischen Territorien” (302–91); W. Schmidt-Biggemann, “Die Schulphilosophie in den reformierten Territorien” (392–474); and W. Sparn, “Die Schulphilosophie in den lutherischen Territorien” (475–587).

31 For the circumstances in which early Lutheran voluntarism and fideism were academically contested though the confessionally driven return of a fully fledged “ontological” metaphysics see the classic study by Sparn, W., Wiederkehr der Metaphysik: Die ontologische Frage in der lutherischen Theologie des frühen 17. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart, 1976)Google Scholar. On the use of the Formula of Concord in confessionalizing programmes see Mager, I., “Aufnahme und Ablehnung des Konkordienbuches in Nord- Mittel- und Ostdeutschland”, in Brecht, M., Schwarz, R. and Krumwiede, H. W., eds., Bekenntnis und Einheit der Kirche (Stuttgart, 1980), 271–302Google Scholar. For the manner in which the Formula of Concord was embedded in Saxon consistorial and criminal law—including the law of heresy and witchcraft—see Landau, P., “Carpzov, das Protestantische Kirchenrecht und die frühneuzeitliche Gesellschaft”, in Jerouschek, G., Schild, W. and Gropp, W., eds., Benedict Carpzov: Neue Perspektiven zu einem umstrittenen sächsischen Juristen (Tübingen, 2000), 227–56Google Scholar.

32 For more on the depreciation of doctrinal theology and the appreciation of the historical importance of practices of piety, see the essays in Nieden, H-J. and Nieden, M., eds., Praxis Pietatis: Bieträge zu Theologie und Frömmigkeit in der Frühen Neuzeit (Stuttgart, 1999)Google Scholar.

33 See the fascinating study of the exercise of Calvinist ecclesial and civil discipline in Emden by a presbyterial town council, in H. Schilling, “Sündenzucht und frühneuzeitliche Sozialdisziplinierung: Die calvinistische, presbyteriale Kirchenzucht in Emden vom 16. bis 19. Jahrhundert”, in Schmidt, G., ed., Stände und Gesellschaft im Alten Reich (Stuttgart, 1989), 265–302Google Scholar. For a parallel exercise of ecclesial and civil authority by the anti-metaphysical Prussian Pietists see Hinrichs, C., Preußentum und Pietismus: Der Pietismus in Brandenberg-Preußen als religiös-soziale Reformbewegung (Göttingen, 1971)Google Scholar.

34 See the discussion of the role of the Jesuit political theologian Adam Contzen as spiritual confessor and political adviser to Maximillian of Bavaria during the Thirty Years War, in Bireley, R., “Hofbeichtväter und Politik im 17. Jahrhundert”, in Sievernich, M. and Switek, G., eds., Ignatianisch: Eigenart und Methode der Gesellschaft Jesu (Freiburg, 1989), 386–403Google Scholar. See also the account of the political deployment of Lutheran scholastic metaphysics in Saxony in Hunter, The Secularisation of the Confessional State, 34–45, 54–83.

35 Cf. Pocock, “Perceptions of Modernity”; and Martin, “Secularisation and the Future of Christianity”.

36 Schilling, H., “Confessionalisation and the Rise of Religious and Cultural Frontiers in Early Modern Europe”, in Andor, E. and Tóth, I. G., eds., Frontiers of Faith: Religious Exchange and the Constitution of Religious Identities 1400–1750 (Budapest, 2001), 21–35Google Scholar.

37 Cf. Stolleis, M., “Religion und Politik im Zeitalter des Barock. ‘Konfessionalisierung’ oder ‘Säkularisierung’ bei der Entstehung des frühmodernen Staates?”, in Breuer, D., Becker-Cantarino, B., Schilling, H. and Sparn, W., eds., Religion und Religiosität im Zeitalter des Barock (Wiesbaden, 1995), 23–42Google Scholar; H. Dreitzel, “Christliche Aufklärung durch fürstlichen Absolutismus. Thomasius und die Destruktion des frühneuzeitlichen Konfessionsstaates”, in Vollhardt, ed., Christian Thomasius, 17–50; and Heckel, “Das Säkularisierungproblem”.

38 See the illuminating studies by Hudson, W., The English Deists: Studies in Early Enlightenment (London, 2008)Google Scholar.

39 M. Mulsow, Moderne aus dem Untergrund, 85–114.

40 On Pufendorf's theological outlook see Döring, D., Pufendorf-Studien. Beiträge zur Biographie Samuel von Pufendorfs und zu seiner Entwicklung als Historiker und theologischer Schriftsteller (Berlin, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For Thomasius's see Ahnert, T., Religion and the Origins of the German Enlightenment: Faith and the Reform of Learning in the Thought of Christian Thomasius (Rochester, 2006)Google Scholar.

41 On the contextually specific reciprocity between Pufendorf's and Thomasius's anti-metaphysical pietistic theology and their “Hobbesian” politics and public law, see Döring, D., “Säkularisierung und Moraltheologie bei Samuel von Pufendorf”, Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 90 (1993), 156–74Google Scholar; Dreitzel, “Christliche Aufklärung durch fürstlichen Absolutismus”; and Hunter, The Secularisation of the Confessional State, 113–41.

42 Hunter, The Secularisation of the Confessional State, 69–71.

43 See Dreitzel, H., “Zur Entwicklung und Eigenart der ‘Eklektischen Philosophie’”, Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung 18 (1991), 281–343Google Scholar; and Schneider, U. J., “Eclecticism Rediscovered”, Journal of the History of Ideas 59 (1998), 173–182CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 See the illuminating studies in Gaukroger, S., The Emergence of a Scientific Culture: Science and the Shaping of Modernity 1210–1685 (Oxford, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Park, K. and Daston, L., eds., The Cambridge History of Science, vol. 3, Early Modern Science (Cambridge, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45 Häfner, “Jacob Thomasius and die Geschichte der Häresien”.

46 Häfner, R., “Das Erknenntnisproblem in der Philologie um 1700. Zum Verhältnis von Polymathie und Aporetik bei Jacob Friedrich Reimman, Christian Thomasius und Johann Albert Fabricius”, in his Philologie und Erkenntnis: Beiträge zu Begriff und Problem frühneuzeitlicher Philologie (Tübingen, 2001), 95–128CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47 Sparn, W., “Philosophie”, in Lehmann, H., ed., Glaubenswelt und Lebenswelten (Göttingen, 2004), 227–63Google Scholar.

48 Thomasius, J., Schediasma historicum (Leipzig, 1665), §52Google Scholar. Lehmann-Brauns, Weisheit in der Weltgeschichte, 77–82.

49 Lehmann-Brauns, Weisheit in der Weltgeschichte, 7–21; Mulsow, Moderne aus dem Untergrund, 261–307.

50 On this approach to the history of philosophy and aesthetics see Hadot, P., Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, trans. Chase, M. (Oxford, 1995)Google Scholar; and Foucault, M., The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France 1981–1982, ed. Gros, F., trans. Burchell, G. (New York, 2006)Google Scholar.

51 For more, see Hunter, I., “The Morals of Metaphysics: Kant's Groundwork as Intellectual Paideia”, Critical Inquiry 28 (2002), 908–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and idem, “Aesthetics and Cultural Studies”, in Grossberg, L., Nelson, C. and Treichler, P. A., eds., Cultural Studies (New York, 1992), 347–67Google Scholar.

52 This issue is also discussed, from a different perspective, in S. During, “Completing Secularism: The Mundane in the Neo-Liberal Era”, in Warner, VanAntwerpen and Calhoun, Varieties of Secularism, 105–25.

53 For some relevant discussion, see Pocock, J. G. A., “Quentin Skinner: The History of Politics and the Politics of History”, Common Knowledge 10 (2004), 532–50, 547–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fasolt, C., The Limits of History (Chicago, 2004)Google Scholar; Hunter, I., “The State of History and the Empire of Metaphysics”, History and Theory 44 (2005), 289–303CrossRefGoogle Scholar.