The Secular Contract: The Politics of Enlightenment

The Secular Contract: The Politics of Enlightenment
ISBN-10
1441113347
ISBN-13
9781441113344
Category
Political Science
Pages
256
Language
English
Published
2011-06-23
Publisher
Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Author
Alex Schulman

Description

The Secular Contract seeks to defend the European Enlightenment's secularization of political philosophy by promoting an understanding of Enlightenment secular liberalism and extending it to contemporary issues. The work proposes that the Enlightenment united the secularizing trends that occurred at the time across all areas of knowledge into a "secular contract" for modern politics. It argues that this was a normatively valuable enterprise whose aims and arguments need to be recovered today, especially in light of the challenges faced by the West, including fundamentalist Christianity in the US and radical Islam in Europe. Looking at the works of many thinkers, such as Hobbes, Jefferson, Madison, Rousseau, the book then shifts to the present day to argue for a different liberalism, as suggested by such contemporary thinkers as William Galston or Stephen Macedo. An engaging read, The Secular Contract will appeal to anyone interested in political theory and the history of ideas.

Other editions

Similar books