Religion and the postsecular public sphere

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Notes

1. For a recent overview and excellent call for continued vibrancy of public sphere studies, see Robert Asen, “Critical Engagement through Public Sphere Scholarship,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 101 (2015): 132–44. See also G. Thomas Goodnight and David B. Hingstman's “Studies in the Public Sphere,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 83 (1997): 351–70.

2. Rawls's Political Liberalism now includes the introduction to the paperback edition, which adds the ‘in due time’ proviso and the important works “Reply to Habermas” and “Idea of Public Reason Revisited.” John Rawls, Political Liberalism: Expanded Edition (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005). Habermas's recent works addressing religion include: Between Naturalism and Religion (Malden, MA: Polity, 2008); Europe: The Faltering Project (Malden, MA: Polity, 2009); An Awareness of What's Missing (Malden, MA: Polity, 2010).

3. See, for example, G. A. Cohen, Rescuing Justice and Equality (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008).

4. Political theology is explored in the current work of John Milbank and Hent de Vries, both of whom contribute to Habermas. Cf. Hent de Vries and Lawrence E. Sullivan, Political Theologies (New York: Fordham University Press, 2006).

5. Robert L. Ivie, “Democratic Deliberation in a Rhetorical Republic,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 84 (1998): 491.

6. Sebastiano Maffettone says, “It might even be said that political philosophers live in the ‘era of Rawls.’” Rawls, vii. But Rawls's views are not as well known in rhetorical studies.

7. Rawls, Political, 247fn36.

8. Rawls thinks that neither abolitionists nor King violated the ideal of public reason. Even though they directly appeal to their comprehensive doctrine, they did so “for the sake of the ideal of public reason itself.” Rawls, Political, 254.

9. Rawls, Political, 462–66.

10. Schwartzman makes a similar move, referring to pro tanto and full justifications in his chapter. Rawls, esp. 152–57. I use pro tanto and omnibus consideratis duties in Ryan Gillespie, “Reason, Religion, and Postsecular Liberal Democratic Epistemology” Philosophy and Rhetoric 47 (2014): 1–23.

11. For example, Talisse, Weithman, and Schwartzman. See Rawls, 68–69, 88–90, 166–67.

12. John Rawls, Collected Papers, edited by Samuel Freeman (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 592, qtd in Rawls, 95fn26.

13. Evidence of Rawls being against this view is the aforementioned translatability of the religious if and when they are oriented toward the ideal of public reason. But he also says: “we hope that citizens will judge (by their comprehensive view) that political values either outweigh or are normally (though not always) ordered prior to whatever nonpolitical values may conflict with them.” Rawls, Political, 392, emphasis added. For discussion, see Rawls, 133–51.

14. Talisse names her Betty in his response chapter (52–74).

15. G. Thomas Goodnight, “Controversy,” In Argument in Controversy: Proceedings of the NCA/AFA Conference on Argumentation, edited by Donn Parsons (Annandale, VA: Speech Communication Association, 1991), 5.

16. Habermas, Between, 111.

17. For a gloss on Habermas' position, see Ryan Gillespie, “Uses of Religion,” International Journal of Communication 5 (2011): 1669–1686. For explicit discussion of epistemic authority, see Rawls, 162–64. That there is still significant tilt in epistemic authority in Habermas is discussed in Habermas (for example, Wolterstorff and McCarthy).

18. In contrast to the postmetaphysical, de Vries uses the term postsecular faith, saying that Habermas means it, mostly, as an empirical reality with which the secular/postmetaphysical public sphere must contend. I am using it normatively here about Habermas's postsecular project more widely. Habermas, 226.

19. The compatibility insight is part of Habermas' project, too, and the notion here is that, in either version of priority between religion and liberal democracy, there is a relationship; thus, it is no surprise that we find Rawls' sympathy for King or Habermas's deference to the law of Judaism and the grace of Christianity as foundational to the (post)secular age.

20. Asen, 141–42.

21. Mahmood rejects the postsecular (22) as might Rawls(ians). But postsecular refers to the idea of recognizing the limits of secularism and the secular episteme, both in and for democratic projects oriented toward justice, and the notion that we need more reasons and motivations in our otherwise secular liberal democratic projects. The main contrast, primarily, is with laïcité-style projects and analyses.

22. Rawls, Collected, 620, qtd in Rawls, 136.

23. Habermas, Between, 105.