Politics and Religion in the New Century Philosophical Reflections

Edited by Philip Andrew Quadrio & Carrol Besseling

SYDNEY UNIVERSITY PRESS

Published 2009 by Sydney University Press SYDNEY UNIVERSITY PRESS Fisher Library, University of Sydney www.sup.usyd.edu.au

Reproduction and communication for other purposes Except as permitted under the Act, no part of this edition may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or communicated in any form or by any means without prior written permission. All requests for reproduction or communication should be made to Sydney University Press at the address below: Sydney University Press Fisher Library University of Sydney NSW Australia 2006 Email: [email protected]

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

Title: Politics and religion in the new century: philosophical reflections / editors Philip Andrew Quadrio, Carrol Besseling. ISBN: 9781920899318 (pbk.) Notes: Bibliography. Subjects: Religion and politics--Philosophy. Religion and state--Philosophy. Philosophy. Other Authors/Contributors: Quadrio, Philip Andrew. Besseling, Carrol. Dewey Number: 201.7

Cover design by Miguel Yamin, the University Publishing Service Printed in Australia

For Raegin(n) and Darian

Contents

Acknowledgements ...... vi Contributors...... ix Introduction ...... 1 Philip Andrew Quadrio

1 Gods of the state: atheism, Enlightenment and barbarity ...... 20 Peter Slezak 2 Philosophy of religion’s political character: myths of tolerance and the re-sanctification of politics ...... 61 Michael Levine 3 Liberalism, the ethics of citizenship and religious belief...... 92 Anthony J. Langlois 4 Respecting an establishment of religion ...... 122 Richard Hamilton 5 The political identity of the Christian church reconsidered: some resources from the history of political theology ...... 146 Matheson Russell 6 Religious truth in a globalising world: new challenges to philosophy of religion ...... 177 Peter Jonkers 7 A place for forgiveness? A Derridean response to terrorism ...... 208 Michael Strawser vi • Politics and religion in the new century

8 In a time of terror: globalisation, transformation, ethics and the Enlightenment ...... 233 Raymond Aaron Younis 9 Bergson’s myth-making faculty: political fabulation and its two religious sources ...... 259 Carl Power 10 Is a radical ecopolitics secular and how might it be? ...... 291 Carleton B. Christensen 11 On praxis for faith and understanding ...... 326 Paul Crittenden 12 Metaphilosophical reflections on theism and atheism in the current debate ...... 354 Paolo Diego Bubbio 13 Parochialism in a pluralistic context: a time for critical self- reflection on philosophy of religion ...... 366 Philip A. Quadrio

Acknowledgements

This book was inspired by a series of symposia, seminars and confe- rences, that the editors were involved in, focused on the intersection of religion and practical philosophy. These were held at the University of Sydney and to a lesser degree the University of New South Wales from February 2005 to July 2008. Throughout this time we had the support and encouragement of the Department of Studies in Religion and the Department of Philosophy at the University of Sydney, and also the School of History and Philosophy at the University of New South Wales. We would like to acknowledge the following people for their support and encouragement: Carole Cusack, the Chair of the Department of Studies in Religion at the University of Sydney has been instrumental in facilitating the majority of the above-mentioned projects. Without her faith in our ability and the importance of the work we were doing it is doubtful this book could have been produced. Also from that department we would like to acknowledge Garry W. Trompf and Frances Di Lauro. From the Department of Philosophy at the Univer- sity of Sydney we would like to thank Paul Redding, Duncan Iverson, and Paul Crittenden all of whom encouraged various projects and activities that lie behind this book. From the School of History and Philosophy at the University of New South Wales we would also men- tion Stephen Cohen, Damien Grace, Peter Slezak and Karyn Lai all of whom have been very supportive in our activities. From Macquarie University we would like to thank Nick Smith and Catriona McKenzie from the Department of Philosophy and Marion Maddox from the viii • Politics and religion in the new century

Centre for Research on Social Inclusion for their support and friend- ship, some of which has helped to keep the wolf from the door while we were compiling and editing the book. Lastly we would like to men- tion the Australasian Philosophy of Religion Association as an important source of inspiration and encouragement and so we extend thanks to our colleagues on the committee of that association: Nick Trakakis, Morgan Luck, Andrew Murray, Ray Younis and John C. Bishop. Of course the book would not have been at all possible without the contributors, whose time and effort through the process of bringing this project to fruition has been greatly appreciated. Their cooperation has been wonderful and made a sometimes difficult job relatively easy. We would also like to thank Susan Murray-Smith and Agata Mrva- Montoya from Sydney University Press for their patience and efforts in bring the book to completion. There are, of course, a number of other people who have been important sources of support and perhaps less direct inspiration in the production of this book, sometimes through seemingly small conver- sations but always by stimulating our reflections. In particular we would like to thank the following: Paris Mawby, Bruin Christensen, Simon Critchley, Victoria Barker, Damian Byers, Philippa Byers, Edward Spence, Stephen Gaukroger, Cressida Gaukroger, Joe Strummer and Sue Cannon. A special thanks is also due to all at the Blue Mountains Continental Philosophy Group, Dave, Tanya and staff at TFD café, Carolyn and Silvio Qua- drio, Madeleine and Colin Besseling and all our family and friends. Finally, Al Swearengen who, if not a moral compass, certainly stimu- lated many discussions of morality, law and society.

Contributors

Paolo Diego Bubbio is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the De- partment of Philosophy at the University of Sydney. He is the author of The intellectual sacrifice: René Girard and philosophy of religion (1999), and Sacrifice, reason and its other (2004), both in Italian. He has also published a number of articles in several journals. Recent works include: The sacrifice of the overman as an expression of the will to power in Nietzsche, power and politics. Ed. H. Siemens (de Gruyter, 2008) and, ‘If there is a plot.’ Gabriel Marcel and second-degree reflection. Between description and interpretation: the hermeneutic turn in phenomenology. Ed. A. Wiercinski (Hermeneutic Press, 2005). Carleton B. Christensen teaches phenomenology and German philosophy at the Australian National University. He holds a B.A. (Hons.) from Latrobe University and an MA and DPhil from the J.W Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main. He has published articles in international journals on topics in analytic philosophy, phenomenology and neo-Kantianism, as well as in the philosophy of sustainability and the environment. He has just published the book Self and world– from analytic philosophy to phenomenology (de Gruyter, 2008). Paul Crittenden is an Emeritus Professor in the School of Philosophi- cal and Historical Inquiry at the University of Sydney. He writes mainly on topics in ethics, Greek philosophy, and modern European philosophy from Nietzsche to Sartre. He has recently published a memoir Changing orders: scenes of clerical and academic life (Brandl & Schlesinger, 2008). x • Politics and religion in the new century

Richard Paul Hamilton Dr Hamilton gained his doctorate from Birkbeck College, University of London. He is currently Senior Lec- turer in Philosophy and Ethics at the University of Notre Dame Australia in Fremantle. He works on moral philosophy broadly un- derstood and has interests in the philosophy of law, philosophy of action, and philosophy of social science. He has published on legal reasons for action and on essentially contested concepts. Much of his work concerns the implications of work in the biological sciences for our understanding of human conduct and while highly critical of reductive explanations, such as evolutionary psychology, he remains sympathetic to the idea that evolutionary theory has significant rami- fications for moral philosophy. He is currently engaged in a major project defending naturalistic virtue ethics against the charge that Darwinism has rendered it redundant. Peter Jonkers (b. Eindhoven, the Netherlands, 1954) is Professor of Philosophy at the Faculty of Catholic Theology of Tilburg University, the Netherlands. He teaches systematic philosophy, philosophy of religion and metaphysics. His research is on German idealism, contemporary metaphysics, and philosophy of religion. Some of his recent publications are: God in France: eight contemporary French thinkers on God (2005); Hegel-lexikon (2006); Religion challenged by contingency (2008); Justifying sacrifice (2008). Anthony J. Langlois is an Associate Professor in the School of Politi- cal and International Studies and chair of the Social and Behavioural Research Ethics Committee at Flinders University, Adelaide. He was educated at the University of Tasmania and the Australian National University. Langlois is the author of: The politics of justice and human rights: Southeast Asia and universalist theory (Cambridge University Press, 2001) and, co-editor of Global democracy and its difficulties (Routledge, 2009). He has published articles in Millennium: journal of international studies, review of international studies, political studies, Contributors • xi

Human Rights Quarterly, Journal of Religious Ethics, Politics and Criti- cal Review of International Social and Political Philosophy among other journals. Michael P. Levine is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Western Australia. He has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Swarthmore College, Baruch College (City University of New York), the University of Virginia, and in Moscow as a Fulbright Fellow. Re- cent publications include Politics most unusual: violence, sovereignty and democracy in the ‘war on terror’; integrity and the fragile self (2003, co-authored); Racism in mind (2003, co-edited) The analytic Freud (ed.); and articles on moral psychology, philosophy of religion, history of philosophy, metaphysics, and film. He is currently writing on architecture and ethics. Carl Power received a PhD from the University of Sydney for his work on the social theory of Henri Bergson. He has taught philosophy at the University of Sydney and is currently employed by the Centen- ary Institute to research and write on the history and philosophy of the medical sciences. His other research interests include moral and political theory, process philosophy, post-structuralism and cultural theory. Philip Andrew Quadrio is based at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. He has published a number of papers on ethics, social theory and political philosophy. While much of Philip’s work is focused on practical philosophy and the history of philosophy, par- ticularly the Enlightenment, this work regularly engages these issues at points of intersection with religion. Philip is currently serving as sec- retary in the Australasian Philosophy of Religion Association. He has just finished co-editorial work on a special edition of the journal Criti- cal Horizons (Acumen, 2009) dedicated to Simon Critchley’s recent text Infinitely demanding (2007).

xii • Politics and religion in the new century

Peter Slezak Peter Slezak is senior lecturer in the School of History and Philosophy at the University of New South Wales. His teaching and research are in the areas of philosophy of science, philosophy of mind and cognitive science and the work of Descartes. He is a mem- ber of the US-based Cognitive Science Society and the Australasian Association of Philosophy. He has published in leading journals such as British Journal for Philosophy of Science, Synthese, Philosophical Psychology and Theory and Decision, and his recent publications include articles on mental representation, Newcomb’s Problem, linguistic explanation, and the (ir-)relevance of cognitive science to education. He is currently completing a book titled ‘Where Philoso- phy Goes When It Dies’ and another on the responsibility of intellectuals. He has also produced an abridgement of several of Plato’s dialogues as a theatre production titled ‘A Cock for Asclepius’. Michael Strawser is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Uni- versity of Central Florida, Orlando. His research interests are Kierkegaard, continental philosophy (both modern and contemporary), and ethics. In addition to numerous articles, he is the author of Both/and: reading Kierkegaard from irony to edification (New York: Fordham University Press, 1997). He is also co-editor of Florida Phi- losophical Review. Raymond Aaron Younis is Associate Director (Academic) at CQU (Sydney). He was educated at the University of Sydney (BA Hons, MA Hons) and the University of Oxford (DPhil). He has taught philosophy at Oxford, the University of Sydney, the University of New South Wales and Macquarie University (Sydney). His book On the Ethical Life was published by Cambridge Scholars in 2009. He has published many papers in books and journals on epistemology, ethics and ap- plied ethics, the philosophy of science, the philosophy of religion and critical theory.