The secularism debate : between revision and critique in Habermas, Taylor, Asad, and Brown

Abstract

The controversial advent of a late modern 'post-secular' moment has pushed politicalphilosophers and theorists back to the drawing board on the question of the place of religion in a secular age, and from there to more fundamental questions about the religious and the secular. Various revisions and critiques of mainstream secular liberal models have unsettled long-held assumptions about secularism. This dissertation examines and echoes these critiques in terms of the conception and legitimation of secularism. The most basic question it targets is: if the secular is not what it was thought to be, as is increasingly apparent, then what is it? And what implications does any reconceptualisation carry for the legitimation of secularism as the prevailing hegemonic discourse and political practice? In considering these questions, this dissertation undertakes a thorough study of secularisation as a historical process, secularity as an epistemic category, and secularism as a political doctrine each first considered separately, for analytical clarity and scopal feasibility, then together, which is their actual discursive and historical condition. It does this in conversation primarily with the relevant work of Jürgen Habermas, Charles Taylor, Talal Asad, and Wendy Brown. It argues that the conception of secularity as a rational-critical subjectivity or a mere this-worldliness, and of secularism as neutral, freedom-maximising governance uniquely fit for managing the diverse populations that mark modern society—in specific contrast to religion as ideological, controversial, and oppressive if given authoritative roles in governance and public life—is untenable. The claims to epistemic universality and political neutrality that discursively undergird standard models of liberal secularism, such as Rawls, and remain crucial for revised models, like those of Habermas and Taylor, are difficult to substantiate. Building on Asad, Brown and others, this dissertation contends that whatever else modern secularism may be, it always entails the inevitably non- neutral subordination, disciplining, and governing of religion. Secularism is as ideological and controversial as any religion or worldview, and, therefore—on its own logic and undercutting its own legitimation—in principle as oppressive. This reconception of secularism shows that its legitimation in mainstream liberal thought and culture needs a thorough rethink. It also allows for a leveller playing field of comparative political theory and philosophy—the prevailing assumption of which remains that secularism is the only way to imagine governance and politicsin modernity—and the imagining of fairer global political futures.

Date of Award	2022
Original language	English