The political sacred and the holiness of life itself
This article reflects on Agamben’s formulation of the sacred within the political order of the West, contrasting this with the Durkheim/Bellah view of the sacred/profane opposition, and then presenting two arguments that reduction of the sacred to the political is insufficient, one a form of biologi...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic/Print Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
[2017]
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| In: |
Religion
Year: 2017, Volume: 47, Issue: 4, Pages: 688-703 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Agamben, Giorgio 1942-
/ The Sacred
/ Political order
/ Holiness (motif)
/ Social psychology
/ Cognition
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| IxTheo Classification: | AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism AD Sociology of religion; religious policy AE Psychology of religion |
| Further subjects: | B
Holiness
B Profane B Agamben B Sacred B Social cognition |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | This article reflects on Agamben’s formulation of the sacred within the political order of the West, contrasting this with the Durkheim/Bellah view of the sacred/profane opposition, and then presenting two arguments that reduction of the sacred to the political is insufficient, one a form of biological reductionism that seeks to locate the sacred within the common, biological nature of human life itself, the other an abductive argument for human transformation in terms of what Sloterdjik has called ‘vertical tension.’ This argument turns out to be one for locating holiness in the very notion of life itself that I wish to ground in the idea of social cognition. |
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| ISSN: | 0048-721X |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/0048721X.2017.1362727 |