Tenth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

Charles Taylor and Gianni Vattimo’s dialogical engagement with secularism and religion articulates: 1) a process of hermeneutical reflexive re-evaluation, 2) a way of re-evaluating transcendentalism, and 3) a re-worked non-metaphysical notion of transcendence. In addition, their dialectical discourse on religion exploits the inexhaustible nature of religion, and its capacity to be more than itself. Thinking through their logic of secularity creates the conditions through which contemporary secularity can be conceptualised, and can be transformed into new nuances. I argue that the philosophical outcome of their hermeneutical deconstruction of both religion and modern secularism (the two are intimately allied) result in: 1) the development of a non-religious conception of religion, 2) in a retrieved religion of being-for-the-other, 3) in charity taking precedence over truth, and 4) in an understanding of the transition from sacred to secular as a hermeneutical process of both “an exodus” and “a transition.” As a result, modern secularism gives rise to charity, which is not incommensurable with transcendence, but articulates it as a way of being open to the other.