The Joy of Secularism: 11 Essays for How We Live Now

276 Pages·2011·8.068 MB·English

by  George Levine (editor)

The Joy of Secularism
2
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The Joy of Secularism
2
11 Essays for How We Live Now
Edited by
George Levine
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON AND OXFORD
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Copyright © 2011 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press,
41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press,
6 Oxford Street, Woodstock,
Oxfordshire OX20 1TW
press.princeton.edu
Excerpts from “The Moose” and “In the Waiting Room” from
The Complete Poems 1927–1979 by Elizabeth Bishop.
Copyright © 1979, 1983 by Alice Helen Methfessel. Reprinted by
permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
“The Sun Underfoot Among the Sundews,” copyright © 1997 by
the Estate of Amy Clampitt, from The Collected Poems of Amy Clampitt
by Amy Clampitt. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of
Random House, Inc.
Excerpt from “Six Young Men” from Collected Poems by Ted Hughes.
Copyright © 2003 by The Estate of Ted Hughes. Reprinted by permission
of Faber and Faber Ltd. and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The joy of secularism : 11 essays for how we live now / edited
by George Levine.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-691-14910-3 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Secularism. I. Levine, George Lewis.
BL2747.8.J69 2011
211'.6—dc22 2010021550
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Sabon LT Std text with
Centaur MT Std Display
Printed on acid-free paper. ∞
Printed in the United States of America
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
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2
Contents
Contributors vii
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
George Levine
1
Challenges for Secularism 24
Philip Kitcher
2
Disenchantment—Reenchantment 57
Charles Taylor
3
Enchantment? No, Thank You! 74
Bruce Robbins
4
Shock Therapy, Dramatization,
and Practical Wisdom 95
William E. Connolly
5
Freud’s Helplessness 115
Adam Phillips
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vi  CONTENTS
6
A Secular Wonder 134
Paolo Costa
7
Prehuman Foundations of Morality 155
Frans B. M. de Waal
8
The Truth Is Sacred 168
David Sloan Wilson
9
Darwinian Enchantment 185
Robert J. Richards
10
The Wetfooted Understory: Darwinian Immersions 205
Rebecca Stott
Notes 225
Index 253
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Contributors
William E. Connolly is the Krieger-Eisenhower Professor at Johns
Hopkins University, where he teaches political theory. His recent books
include Why I Am Not a Secularist (1999), Neuropolitics: Thinking, Cul­
ture, Speed (2002), Pluralism (2005), and Capitalism and Christianity,
American Style (2008). His book A World of Becoming is scheduled to
be published in 2011.
Paolo Costa is a senior researcher at the Fondazione Bruno Kessler
(Trent, Italy). He studied at the universities of Milan, Parma, and To-
ronto. He is the author of two books, Verso un’ontologia dell’umano
(2001) and Un’idea di umanità. Etica e natura dopo Darwin (2007), and
of several articles, translations, and collections. He is currently working
on the topic of animal intelligence.
Frans B. M. de Waal is a Dutch American biologist and ethologist spe-
cialized in the social behavior and social cognition of monkeys, chimpan-
zees, and bonobos. He is presently C. H. Candler Professor of Psychology
at Emory University, and director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes
National Primate Research Center, in Atlanta, Georgia. He is well known
for his popular books, starting with Chimpanzee Politics (1982), and his
writings on the evolutionary origin of morality, such as Primates and Phi­
losophers (2006). He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences
and the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences.
Philip Kitcher was born in London. He has taught at several Ameri-
can universities and is currently John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at
Columbia. He is the author of ten books on topics ranging from the phi-
losophy of mathematics, to the philosophy of biology, the growth of sci-
ence, the role of science in society, Wagner’s Ring, and Joyce’s Finnegans
Wake. He has been president of the American Philosophical Association
(Pacific Division) and editor in chief of Philosophy of Science. A fellow of
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he was also the first recipient
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viii  CONTRIBUTORS
of the Prometheus Prize, awarded by the American Philosophical Asso-
ciation for work in expanding the frontiers of science and philosophy. He
has been named a Friend of Darwin by the National Committee on Sci-
ence Education, and received a Lannan Foundation Notable Book Award
for Living with Darwin.
George Levine is professor emeritus, Rutgers University, and author of
many books on Victorian literature and on the relations between litera-
ture and science. Among them are Darwin and the Novelists (1988) and
Darwin Loves You (2006). His recent Realism, Ethics, and Secularism
was awarded a prize as the best book in the field of literature and science
for 2008 by the British Society for Literature and Science.
Adam Phillips is a psychoanalyst and writer in London.
Robert J. Richards is the Morris Fishbein Professor of the History of
Science and Medicine at the University of Chicago. He is a professor
in the Departments of History, Philosophy, and Psychology. He has au-
thored several books dealing with evolutionary theory: Darwin and the
Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior (1987), The
Meaning of Evolution (1992), The Romantic Conception of Life: Science
and Philosophy in the Age of Goethe (2002), and The Tragic Sense of
Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Theory (2008).
He is currently at work on a historical and philosophical commentary on
Darwin’s Origin of Species.
Bruce Robbins is Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humani-
ties in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Colum-
bia University. His books include Upward Mobility and the Common
Good (2007), Feeling Global: Internationalism in Distress (1999), The
Servant’s Hand: English Fiction from Below (1986), and Secular Voca­
tions: Intellectuals, Professionalism, Culture (1993). He has also taught at
Rutgers University, the University of Lausanne, and the University of Ge-
neva, and has held visiting positions at Harvard, Cornell, and New York
universities. He serves on the editorial board of the journal boundary 2.
Rebecca Stott is professor of literature at the University of East Anglia
at Norwich. She is the author most recently of Darwin and the Barnacle
(2003), a study of Darwin’s barnacle years, and the two historical novels
Ghostwalk (2007) and The Coral Thief (2009). She is currently writing
a book of nonfiction for Bloomsbury called Infidels: In Search of the
First Evolutionists.
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