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Secular Powers

Humility in Modern Political Thought

By: Julie E. Cooper

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Hardcover | 28 October 2013 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Hardcover
256 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
2.3 x 1.65 x 0.21

Hardcover

$126.75

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Secularism is usually thought to contain the project of self-deification, in which humans attack Godâs authority in order to take his place, freed from all constraints. Julie E. Cooper overturns this conception through an incisive analysis of the early modern justifications for secular politics. While she agrees that secularism is a means of empowerment, she argues that we have misunderstood the sources of secular empowerment and the kinds of strength to which it aspires.
Contemporary understandings of secularism, Cooper contends, have been shaped by a limited understanding of it as a shift from vulnerability to power. But the works of the foundational thinkers of secularism tell a different story. Analyzing the writings of Hobbes, Spinoza, and Rousseau at the moment of secularityâs inception, she shows that all three understood that acknowledging oneâs limitations was a condition of successful self-rule. And while all three invited humans to collectively build and sustain a political world, their invitations did not amount to self-deification. Cooper establishes that secular politics as originally conceived does not require a choice between power and vulnerability. Rather, it challenges usâ"today as thenâ"to reconcile them both as essential components of our humanity.

Industry Reviews

"Julie E. Cooper has undertaken an impressive survey of the historical and contemporary literatures to elucidate and explain the limitations posed by the mistaken presumption that self-aggrandizement is a corollary of secularization. An erudite and truly excellent study, Secular Powers is positioned to make an extremely important contribution to contemporary arguments about the fortunes and possibly the future of secularism in political life." (Samantha L. Frost, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)"

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