Charles Taylor

What Does Secularism Mean?

Charles Taylor - Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, McGill University (Montreal, Canada). cmt1111111@aol.com

This article analyses what secularism could mean for the modern democratic society. It claims that secularism should pursuit three main goals: freedom (no one must be forced in the domain of religion, or basic belief); equality (there must be equality between people of different faiths or basic belief'); fraternity (all spiritual families must be heard and included in the ongoing process of determining what the society is about). Besides, secularism should mean our attempts to maintain relations of harmony and comity between the supporters of different religions and Weltanshauungen. The author critically analyzes what he calls "fixation on religion" among theorists of secularism: this fixation leads to the reduction of secularism to the problem of separation between state and religious institutions.

Keywords: democracy, laicism, post-secular society, public sphere, Rawls, Habermas.

1

WE live in a world in which ideas, institutions, artistic styles, and recipes for production and living circulate between societies and civilizations,

Оригинал см.: Taylor, Ch. (2011) "What Does Secularism Mean?", in Taylor, Ch. Dilemmas and Connections. Selected Essays, pp. 303 - 325. Cambridge, MA; London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Translation and publication rights in Russian are kindly provided by the author.

Taylor Ch. What is secularism? // State, religion, and Church in Russia and abroad. 2015. N 1 (33). С. 218 - 253 Taylor, Ch. (2015) "What Does Secularism Mean?", Gosudarstvo, religiia, tserkov' v Rossii i za rubezhom 33 (1): 218 - 253

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very different from each other both in their historical roots and traditional forms. Parliamentary democracy spread from England, reaching India in particular; the practice of nonviolent civil disobedience, originating during India's struggle for independence, spread everywhere, influencing, in particular, the civil rights movement of Martin Luther King Jr., Manila in 1983, or, for example, the velvet and orange revolutions of recent years.

However, these ideas and practices do not just move around as solid blocks; they are modified, reinterpreted, and take on new meanings with each subsequent transfer. The result can be a huge amount of confusion that will accompany all our attempts to follow these turns and understand them. Part of the confusion is that we take words too seriously; the word may be the same, but the reality revealed by a given word can often be very different.

This is obvious in the case of the word "secular". We think of "secularization" as a self-identical process that can start anywhere (according to some estimates, it has already started almost everywhere). We think of secularism as an option for any country, regardless of whether this policy is implemented or not. It goes without saying that these words flash everywhere. However, do they have the same meaning every time they are repeated? Aren't these very subtle differences that might confuse any cross-cultural discussion of these issues?

I believe that there are such differences and that they really create problems for understanding. Either we are petrified by an abundance of contradictions, or a minimal awareness of significant differences forces us to draw far-reaching conclusions, often very far removed from the reality we are trying to comprehend. The following arguments can serve as an illustration of this situation: since "secular" is a traditional category of Christian culture, which has no analogues in Islam, it means that Islamic societies cannot adapt the secular regime for themselves. Naturally, Islamic societies will never resemble societies that have emerged in the area of Christian civilization, but it cannot be ruled out that the idea, far from being tied to a specific place, can lead to the emergence of new ideas.-

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travel across borders in a highly imaginative and bizarre way.

* * *

Let's analyze some of the features of "secular" as a category developed within Latin Christianity. In the beginning, it was part of a dyad. The secular had to do with the "century" - that is, with profane time - and it contrasted with that which referred to eternal or sacred time. 1 Some periods, personalities, institutions, and actions were considered to be closely related to sacred or higher time, while others were considered to be strictly related to profane time. That is why a similar division could be expressed through the use of the "spiritual/temporal" dyad (for example, the state as an instrument of the church in the worldly space). Thus, ordinary parish priests turn out to be "secular" because they operate within the "century" - in contrast to those who are inside monastic institutions, that is, from" regular " priests who live according to the rules of their own monastic order.

From this we get the simplest meaning of "secularization", which dates back to the Reformation. In this case, it refers to situations in which a number of functions, properties, or institutions were removed from the control of the church and transferred to the control of the laity.

Such transitions were initially carried out within a system that was held together by an all-encompassing dyad; things moved from one space to another within an established coordinate system. Such a context of the" secular", where it still persists, can make secularization a relatively ordinary process, comparable to the movement of furniture in space, the main points of support of which remain unchanged.

However, since the 17th century, a new configuration has emerged, a new concept of social life, in which everything that exists is "secular". Since "secular" initially referred to profane or everyday time as opposed to higher time, it was necessary to come to an understanding of profane time that would not require any special interpretation.

1. For a discussion of profane and sacred time, see Taylor, Ch. (2007) A Secular Age, pp. 54-61. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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references to this highest time. The word could continue to be used as if nothing had happened, but its meaning underwent a radical change - the opposite pole was completely changed. From now on, the opposition did not follow the temporal dimension, in which "spiritual" institutions occupied their niche; rather, the secular in its new meaning became the opposite of any claims made in the name of something transcendent in relation to this world and its interests. Needless to say, those who shared the new understanding of "secular" saw these theses as highly baseless and worthy only to be tolerated until they began to challenge the interests of worldly authorities and the worldly well-being of man.

However, because many continued to believe in the transcendent, the churches still retained some place in the social order. They may have played a significant role in the life of society, but this role was understood exclusively in terms of" worldly " goals and values (peace, prosperity, growth, prosperity).

This shift brought about two important changes: first, it introduced a new concept of a good social and political order that was not related to the traditional ethics of a good life, nor to the specific Christian understanding of perfection (holiness). It was a new ideal of society, based on Hugh's ideas, created by and for individuals to meet their needs for security and sustenance. The criterion of social goodness, according to this worldview, i.e. mutual benefit, was not only fundamentally "worldly", but also not connected in any way with "virtue" in the traditional sense of the word.

The selection of a purely " mundane "criterion took place within the framework of a more general division of" this world " into immanent and transcendent. This clear division is the fruit of the development of the world of Latin Christianity, and it has become part of the way people in the West view things around them. We tend to think of this division as universal, but in no culture in history has there been such a rigid gradation. What really existed everywhere was the isolation of higher beings (spirits) or spheres separated from the everyday world that immediately surrounds us.-

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However, these two poles generally did not represent separate realities, so that the lower pole could be understood as a system solely in its own categories. Rather, these levels interpenetrated each other, and the lower level could not be understood without reference to the higher. For example, if we turn to the history of philosophy, then for Plato the existence and development of things around us could only be understood through their involvement in the corresponding ideas that exist on the other side of time. The clear separation of immanent form from transcendent order is one of the inventions (I don't know if it was for better or worse) of Latin Christianity.

The new understanding of the secular that I have described is based on this division. The essence of this understanding is that the" lower " - immanent or secular - order exhausts everything that exists, and the higher-transcendent-order is an invention of man. However, naturally, the previous constitution of a clear separation of these two levels prepared the ground for the "declaration of independence" of the immanent.

* * *

Initially, the independence claimed by immanence was limited and partial. In the eighteenth-century" deistic " version of this claim, God was seen as a mechanic of immanent order. Since he is the creator, the natural order is the proof of his existence; and because the proper human order of mutual benefit is an order that was devised and commanded by God, when we maintain this order, we follow His will. Moreover, it is still argued that God supports His own law with rewards and punishments that await a person in the next life.

Thus, some religiosity, some piety is a necessary condition for good order. That is why Locke will exclude not only Catholics but also atheists from the list of those who are worthy of tolerance. The positive relationship between God and the good order was described above, but religion can also have a negative impact. Religious authorities can compete with secular authorities; they can demand things from believers that go beyond the requirements of good order or even contradict them; they can

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make irrational demands. Consequently, society must be continually purged of" superstition, "" fanaticism, "and"enthusiasm."

The attempts of eighteenth-century" enlightened "rulers such as Frederick the Great and Joseph II to" rationalize " religious institutions - and, in effect, turn the church into a department of the state - belong to this early stage of secularization in the West. This also includes, albeit in a slightly different sense, the founding of the American Republic with its separation of church and state. However, the first explicit declaration of the self-sufficiency of the secular occurs in the most radical periods of the French Revolution.

The polemical defense of secularism is once again evident in the Third Republic, whose "laicism" is based on the ideas of self-sufficiency of secularism and the exclusion of religion. Needless to say, this spirit has not disappeared from modern France, as evidenced by the ongoing debate regarding the ban on wearing the hijab. There is still a popular thesis that the public space, that is, the space in which citizens meet with each other, should be free from any reference to religions.

* * *

Thus, the history of the concept of "secular" in the West is complex and ambiguous. First, secular is one of the concepts of the dyad, which distinguishes two dimensions of existence, each of which refers to a specific type of time. But then, out of this clear division into immanent and transcendent, a completely different dyad develops, in which the "secular" turns out to be that which belongs to the self-sufficient, immanent sphere and is opposed to that which belongs to the transcendent sphere (often identified as the "religious" sphere). This binary opposition can then undergo further mutations: for example, by denying the reality of the transcendent level of the dyad - in such a situation, one of the members of the dyad refers to the real ("secular"), and the other - to something fictional ("religious"); another example: "secular" begins to denote the institutions necessary for the development of the dyad. "religious "or" ecclesiastical " are additional accessories that often disrupt the flow of this-worldly life.

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By means of such a double mutation, the dyad is transformed in the most significant way. In the first case, both poles are real and unavoidable dimensions of life and society. Thus, the dyad turns out to be "internal" in the sense that each of the poles requires the other for its existence-just as the right requires the left, and the top requires the bottom. After these transformations, the dyad becomes "external"; secular and religious are contrasted as true and false, as necessary and redundant. In some cases, the goal of the policy is to destroy one while preserving the other.

* * *

Post-deistic forms of secularism adopt some of the features of the deistic pattern described above. In the Jacobin worldview, nature becomes the designer, and the required "piety" is a humanistic ideology based on a natural foundation. What is unacceptable is any form of" public " religion. Faith must be pushed out into private space. In accordance with this position, there should be a harmonious independent system of social morality that does not involve any reference to the transcendent. This demand, in turn, reinforces the idea that there is a so-called "only reason" (die blosse Vernunft), that is, a reason that does not rely on any "additional" premises derived from Revelation or any other supposedly transcendent source. Various versions of this thesis often appear in contemporary discussions about secularism in the West2.

The deistic pattern has helped define what has been described as a "good" or "acceptable" religion in most Western discussions for several centuries. A good or respectable religion is a set of beliefs in a God or some transcendent power that leads to acceptable or-in some versions - "rational" morality. It is cleared of any elements that do not contribute to this system-

2. I already had to analyze these theses. См. Taylor, Ch. (2011) "Die Blosse Vernunft" ("Reason alone"), in Taylor, Ch. Dilemmas and Connections. Selected Essays. Cambridge, MA; London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

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It is therefore free of "prejudices". In addition, such a religion is naturally opposed to" fanaticism " or "enthusiasm", since these phenomena by definition imply a challenge on the part of religious authorities to what "only reason" can designate as a proper social order.3
Thus, religion may well contribute to the social order by instilling correct moral principles, but it should avoid the danger of becoming a threat to this order, that is, it should not challenge it. Locke, who thinks in this logic, is willing to tolerate various religious views, but at the same time excludes atheists (since disbelief in the afterlife undermines their willingness to keep their word and respect the good order) and Catholics (who simply cannot help but challenge the established order) from the sphere of such favorable attitude.

In both positive and negative cases, a good religion makes a significant contribution inforo interna, that is, in the inner dimension: on the one hand, it generates the right moral motivation; on the other hand, remaining inside the soul and mind of the subject, it refrains from challenging external orders. Thus, public ritual can be an essential element of this" rational " religion only if it can contribute to the glorification of public order or to the promotion of internal moral motivation.

* * *

Eventually, this whole constellation of terms, including "secular" and "religious" with all their ambiguities and deep assumptions about the clear separation of immanent and transcendent, on the one hand, and public and private, on the other, begins to travel around the world. It is not surprising that the result is colossal confusion. In the West itself, people are often confused about their own history. One way to understand the development of Western secularism is to look at the separation of church and state and the displacement of religion into the realm of the "private," from the state.-

3. For a more detailed discussion of the idea of a "modern moral order", see Taylor, Ch. (2004) Modern Social Imaginaries. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

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nor does it have the ability to interfere in public life, as a natural result of the earlier division between the secular (temporal) and the sacred (eternal). In retrospect, this process seems to be a highly successful solution, which makes it possible to push religion to the very edge of political life.

However, it is not so easy to separate the stages of this process. For example, American secularists often confuse the separation of church and state with the separation of religion and state. Rawls, in one of his works, called for a ban in public discourse on any arguments that refer to "all-encompassing views" (including religious views). Moreover, all these concepts taken together provoke highly ethnocentric judgments. If the canonical background required for a secular regime consists of the three stages described above, i.e. the separation of church and state, the separation of church and state, and finally the elimination of religion from the life of the state and society, then it can be clearly concluded that Islamic societies will never come to such a regime.

It is also not uncommon to hear judgments that the Chinese society of the empire was already "secular". It completely ignores the enormous role that the separation of immanent and transcendent, which was absent in traditional Chinese culture, played in the formation of the Western concept of the secular. Ashish Nandi, discussing the problems that arise from the use of the term "secular" in different contexts, points out the confusion that often accompanies similar judgments about India (for example, in the thesis that the Emperor Ashoka was already "secular" or that the Mungal Emperor Akbar established a "secular" form of government).

However, in this (under)but there may also be some wisdom involved. Nandi identifies two completely different concepts that, consciously or unconsciously, influence Indian discussions. Firstly, there is a "scientific-rationalistic" meaning of the concept, when secularism is identified with modernity; secondly, there are many "smoothing" meanings rooted in various traditions. In the first context, we are talking about attempts to liberate public life from religion; in the second, we are talking about opening up a space "for continuing education".

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dialogue between religious traditions, as well as between a religious worldview and a secular one " 4.

Referring to Akbar as the creator of the "secular" regime can help us creatively and productively rethink this concept. Such reinterpretations, beginning with the definition of the problems that modern society will have to solve, often involve interpreting secularism as attempts to find honest and harmonious ways to coexist with different communities, while setting aside all the connotations of the word "secular" associated with Western history. In this case, we take into account the fact that the search for mutually beneficial co-existence was conducted within the framework of many very different religious traditions and that it is not a monopoly of those whose worldview was formed by the modern Western dyad, in which the secular claims the exclusive right to be real.5
2

There is a general consensus that modern democracy should be "secular". As it was shown, this concept is not without some ethnocentrism. However, even in the West, it remains ambiguous. What does this mean? In my opinion, there are at least two models of a secular regime in the West today.

Both models involve, in one form or another, the separation of church and state. A state may not be officially associated with any religious denomination, except perhaps for something residual and at best symbolic, as, for example, in England or the Scandinavian countries. However, secularism also implies something more. The pluralism of our society requires that the State remains neutral or neutral.

4. Nandy, A. (2002) "The Politics of Secularism and the Recovery of Religious Tolerance", in Nandy, A. Time Warps, chap. 3, esp. pp. 68 - 69, 80. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

5. Ibid., p. 85. Amartya Sen uses similar arguments about Akbar's rule to probe the historical Indian roots of some forms of secularism. См. Sen, А. (2005) The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture, and Identity. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. For an excellent example of this creative reinterpretation, see Bhargava, R. (1998) "What Is Secularism For?", in Bhargava, R. (ed.) Secularism and Its Critics. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

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"fundamental distance", to use the concept of Rajiv Bhargava 6.

If you delve deeper into this problem, it turns out that secularism is a complex requirement. It is an attempt to achieve not one good, but many. We can distinguish three goals, formulated in the spirit of the triad of the French Revolution: freedom, equality, fraternity. (1) No one can be forced to religion or belief, coercion is unacceptable. This is what is meant when we speak of religious freedom, including, of course, the freedom of unbelief. In fact, this is exactly how the "free practice" of religion is described, based on the First Amendment to the US Constitution. (2) People of different faiths or fundamental beliefs must be equal; no religious perspective or (religious/non-religious) worldview can gain privileged status, let alone become an official position of the state; (3) All spiritual traditions must be heard and involved in the ongoing process of defining what society is (what is its political identity), as well as how exactly it should strive to achieve these goals (a specific regime of rights and privileges). This is exactly what the imperative of "brotherhood"implies (to expand on this point a little).

These goals, of course, may contradict each other; sometimes we have to find compromises between them. Moreover, I think we should add a fourth goal: we should make every effort to maintain harmony and mutual respect between adherents of different religions and worldviews (perhaps, by the way, this is a real "brotherhood", but I still tend to follow the neat scheme outlined above, which is limited to three traditional goals).

Sometimes, on behalf of a particular type of secularism, the thesis is put forward that it is able to realize all these goals through following timeless universal principles. According to this logic, no further contributions and no further negotiations aimed at setting these goals for our society are required. The basis for these principles can be derived from one

6. Bhargava, R. "What is Secularism For?" pp. 586-652 (for "principal distance", see pp. 493_494, 520); also see: Bhargava, R. (1997) "The Distinctiveness of Indian Secularism", in T. N. Srinavasan (ed.) The Future of Indian Secularism. Secularism, pp. 39-41. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

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"only of reason" or from a certain perspective that is free from religion, that is, it is strictly laique, "worldly". The Jacobins, as well as the early Rawls, think in this spirit.

The problem with this approach is that (a) there is no set of timeless principles that can correspond in every detail to any political system; (b) contexts can vary greatly, and accordingly, the implementation of the general principles discussed requires specification; that is, some degree of elaboration is necessary in any case. It follows that (c) dictating these principles from the height of some supposedly higher authority standing over the fight is a violation of the above-mentioned point (3). Thus, (d) we often face a situation of complex conflicts and dilemmas between the main stated goals.

A good illustration of argument (b) is how questions about secularism have evolved in various Western societies over the past decades, because the faiths represented in these societies have changed. We are forced to change our usual mode of action at a time when the range of religions or basic philosophical positions is expanding. This, for example, happened in modern Europe and America, along with the emergence of close-knit Muslim communities there.

Argument (c) is illustrated by the example of a recent French law prohibiting the wearing of the hijab in school. Usually, such issues are resolved through negotiations. The host country is often forced to send a double message: (i) this should not be done here (for example, killing blasphemous authors or performing female genital cutting); (I) we encourage you to join the consensus-building process. These two signals contradict each other: the first (i) constrains the second (ii) and makes it less convincing. Accordingly, we have every reason to avoid using the signal (i) whenever possible.Of course, this is sometimes impossible. Some basic laws must still be observed. However, the general principle is that religious groups should be considered primarily as interlocutors and only in rare cases as a threat.

These groups also develop if they are involved in a process of redefinition that takes place in a democratic, liberal context. Jose Casanova points out that

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American Catholicism in the 19th century was labeled as fundamentally adaptable to democratic mores. Such labeling is reminiscent of the suspicions that are being raised about Islam today. History has demonstrated the development of American Catholicism, which has also had a major impact on Catholicism as a whole. There is no intelligence inscribed in the very essence of things that would make such an evolution of Islamic communities impossible. If such an evolution does not occur, it will be primarily due to our prejudices and mismanagement.

In my opinion, one of the main reasons for our difficulties is that a false model is firmly embedded in our heads. We believe that secularism (or laicism) concerns the relationship between the state and religion, when in fact it is related to the (correct) response of a democratic state to the challenge of diversity. If you look at the three goals outlined above, they have something in common: they are related to (1) protecting the right of people to have and / or put into practice any chosen worldview; (2) treating all people equally, no matter what their choice may be; (3) creating conditions for all people to be heard. We have no reason to single out religion and contrast it with non-religious," secular " (another widely known meaning of the word) or atheistic points of view.

The essence of state neutrality is precisely to avoid preferring or ignoring not just religious positions, but any fundamental beliefs - both religious and non-religious. We cannot choose Christianity over Islam, we cannot favor religion over unbelief ,and vice versa.

One way to prove the advantage of a model of secularism based on the above three goals over one that focuses on religion is to point out that the former will never allow the regime founded by Ataturk to be called truly secular.

These reflections confirm the value of Rawls ' later formulations of the secular state. They are based on certain political principles: human rights, equality, the rule of law, and democracy. These are the foundations of the state, which, in turn, must approve them. And this

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political ethics can be shared by people with very different basic positions (which Rawls calls "all-encompassing visions of the good"). The Kantian will justify the right to life and liberty by pointing out the virtues of rational action. The utilitarian will talk about the need to treat beings who may experience joy and suffering in such a way as to maximize the former and minimize the latter. A Christian will say that man is created in the image and likeness of God. All of these people agree on general principles, but disagree on the underlying reasons that lead to support for this ethic. The State should promote this ethic, but at the same time refrain from giving preference to certain underlying reasons.

3

The idea that secularism is somehow specifically focused on religion is a result of the emergence of this concept in the West (where the word itself came from). In short, there are two main contexts in which this regime emerged: the United States and France. In the United States, all comprehensive doctrines or deep beliefs were originally varieties of (Protestant) Christianity; this also includes superficial Deism. Subsequent history expanded the range of views on the other side of Christianity, and then on the other side of religion. But initially, all the positions on which the state was supposed to be neutral were religious. Hence the First Amendment to the Constitution: The US Congress will not establish a state religion or prohibit the free exercise of faith.

The word "secularism" hardly appeared in the early stages of American public life, which was a sign that the underlying problem had not yet been identified. Since the First Amendment was limited to the separation of church and state, it opened up the possibility of granting religion privileges that no one today would recognize as acceptable. In the 1830s, a Supreme Court justice might have thought that the First Amendment prevented the federal government from being identified with any church, and since all churches are Christian (essentially Protestant), it is perfectly possible to appeal to Christianity in the process of interpreting laws.

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For Justice Joseph Story, the purpose of the First Amendment was to "exclude any competition among Christian sects," which does not prevent " Christianity from receiving encouragement from the state." Christianity, in Story's view, was essential to the state, since belief in" future retribution or punishment "is"essential to the administration of justice." Moreover, "for those who recognize the truth of Christianity as a divine revelation, there is no way to doubt that the special duty of the Government is to strengthen and spread Christianity among the population." 7
The priority position of Christianity was defended throughout the 19th century. In 1890, 37 of the 42 existing states recognized the authority of God in the preamble or in the very text of their constitutions. An anonymous Supreme Court decision of 1892 stated that if anyone wants to describe " American life, its laws, its affairs, its customs, its society, he will come to the unequivocal conclusion ... that this is a Christian nation "(Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 143 U.s. 457-471)..

At the end of the century, the struggle against this vision began; however, as early as 1863, the National Association for Reform (NRA) was founded, which set itself the following goal::

The goal of this society will be: to maintain Christian traits in the American government... Adoption of an amendment to the United States Constitution that declares the nation's commitment to Jesus Christ and its acceptance of the moral laws of the Christian religion. The amendment will make it clear that the United States is a Christian nation by writing Christian laws, institutions, and principles of our government into the fundamental law of our land, and thereby providing them with an unquestionable legal foundation.

After 1870, the struggle was between those who supported this narrow view and those who wanted real freedom for all religions, as well as non-religions. The second group included not only Jews, but also Catholics who (rightly) believed that the NRA's" Christianity " excluded them. It was during this struggle that the concept of "secular" first began to appear on the American stage as a key concept (zacha-

7. Koppelman, A. Rawls and Habermas (personal letter).

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in the polemical sense of something non-religious or even anti-religious)8.

In France, Laicism emerged in a struggle against a powerful church. A strong temptation for the state was the desire to rely on its own moral foundations, independent of religion. Marcel Gaucher shows how Renouvier laid the foundations of the worldview of the radicals of the Third Republic in their struggle against the Church. The state was supposed to be "moral and enlightened" (moral et enseignant). It "is responsible for souls in the same way as a church or religious community, but the message of the state is more universal." Here the key criterion is morality. In order not to submit to the church, the state must have a "morality independent of any religion", but such a morality that would be "morally superior" to any religion. The basis of this morality is freedom. In order for the morality of the state to withstand the onslaught of religion, it must be based on something more than mere utility or sentiment; it needs a real "rational theology" - in the spirit of the one proposed by Kant9. The wisdom of Jules Ferry, and later Aristide Briand and Jean Jaures, saved France during the passage of the Law on the Separation of Church and State (1905) from introducing such a unipolar regime, but this did not prevent the strengthening of the position that laicism concerns primarily the control and management of religion.

However, if we look beyond the initial contexts described above, if we look back at the societies that have developed in the modern West, then the first feature that can strike us is the extreme diversity of not only religious, but also non-religious views, not to mention those positions that cannot be classified within the concepts of this country. dichotomies. Principles (1), (2), and (3) require us to treat all views fairly.

8. Smith, Ch. (2003) The Secular Revolution. Berkeley: University of California Press. См. также: Wenger, T. (2010) "Rewriting the First Amendment: Competing American Secularisms, 1850 - 1900", in Linell Cady and Elizabeth Shakman Hurd (eds) Public Religion, Secularism, and Democracy. London: Routledge Press.

9. Gauchet, M. (1998) La Religion dans la Democratie. Paris: Gallimard.

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4

A certain obsession with attention to religion is very complex and is associated with two other features that often characterize disputes about secularism. First, there is the tendency to define secularism or laicism through some institutional mechanism, rather than identifying the goals discussed above. Hence the incantation formulas: "separation of church and state" or "religion must be removed from public space" ("the space of the Republic", if we return to recent discussions in France). The second feature seems to follow from the first. If the problem is solved using a single institutional formula, then all that remains is to determine which state of affairs best corresponds to this formula, and then no reflection is appropriate. There is no question of any dilemma that confronts everyone who pursues more than one goal, because everything is subordinated to the logic of one dominant formula.

Accordingly, it is not surprising that very often we hear mantras used to stop any discussion - the last argument that cancels out any objections. In the US, the "Wall of Separation" argument is such an argument, and hyper-Republicans in France refer to Laicism as the ultimate truth. (Of course, if you look at the text of the First Amendment to the US Constitution, you can find two goals I mentioned: the rejection of the establishment of an official church and the guarantee of "free religion." However, it is not improbable that these two goals can contradict each other.)

Such approaches, if viewed from the point of view that I advocate here, lead to a fetishistic attitude towards the favored institutional mechanisms, when in fact it is necessary to start with the goals pursued and develop specific mechanisms that correspond to them. No one disputes that a certain separation of church and state, a certain mutual autonomy of administrative and religious institutions is absolutely necessary for any secular regime. The same is true of the neutrality of public institutions. However, exactly how these imperatives will be implemented in practice should be determined by:-

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The goal is to achieve the three (or four) main goals as fully as possible.

Let's take as an example the hijab worn by Muslim women in public schools. This topic has become the subject of intense debate in a number of Western democracies. In France, public school students were banned from wearing hijabs, which, according to the infamous Stasi law of 2004, were marked as "signe religieux ostantatoire" (deliberate religious signs). In Germany, in some countries, students are allowed to wear the hijab, but the teacher is not allowed to do so. There are no such general bans in the United Kingdom and several other countries, but specific schools can make such decisions.

What is the reason for such differences? It is clear that in all cases, legislators and officials tried to balance the two goals. First, they sought to preserve the neutrality of State institutions, which (quite rightly) can be seen as a consequence of the goal (2), that is, ensuring the equality of all basic beliefs. Second, the goal (1), which is intended to guarantee the maximum possible religious freedom or, in the most general terms, the maximum freedom of conscience, was also taken into account. Goal (1) quite naturally pushes for the universal resolution of the hijab. However, a number of arguments in the French and German cases prevented this decision from being made. The Germans were worried that a certain person who was invested with power in a state institution would be religiously labeled. In the case of the French, an attempt has been made to question whether wearing the hijab is an act of free choice. Various dark assumptions were put forward: allegedly, girls were forced to comply with the dress code of their families or male peers. This argument, however dubious in light of the sociological studies conducted among the students themselves, was used very often, and the Stasi commission completely ignored the conclusions made by the scientists.

Another key argument was that wearing the hijab in school is not so much a religious act as a demonstration of hostility towards the Republic and its fundamental Laicist values. This logic was the basis of the concept of "deliberate signs". According to the Stasi Commission, less flashy characters don't pose any problems, however.-

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attention-grabbing clothing hoists are designed to challenge society. Muslim women tried to argue that " the headscarf is not a sign "(le foulard n'est pas un signe), but in vain.

Thus, we see that different answers to the same question reflect different approaches to the problem: how exactly can the two main goals of a secular regime be balanced? But at the same time, the dilemma itself and its solution were obscured by the illusion that there is only one principle at stake here - for example, laicism and its consequence in the form of neutrality of state institutions and public space ("les espaces de la Republique"). This logic has only one goal in mind: to implement the essential feature of our republican regime; there is no need to choose or compare different goals.

Perhaps the most dangerous feature of such fetishization is that it hides from us the real dilemmas that we face and that we face in full force as soon as we recognize the plurality of the principles we hold dear.

5

It should be understood that this fetishization is a reflection of the deeper features of life in modern democracies. As soon as we start thinking about what self-government is, what is the form of legitimation of states, we see that all this is based on popular sovereignty. In order for a nation to become a sovereign, it needs to form a single organism, turn into a person.

Revolutions that became satellites of popular sovereignty regimes transferred power from the king to the "nation" or"people." In the course of this process, the collective actor was invented, which was unprecedented in history. The concepts of "nation" and" people " had existed before, but the new phenomenon they now pointed out was absolutely unprecedented, at least in the context of early Modern Europe. The concept of "people" may well have been applied to the totality of subjects of the kingdom or to non-elite strata of society, but before the revolutionary transformations, it did not denote an entity capable of making decisions and acting together.

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Moreover, it did not denote an entity to which a general will could be attributed.

In order for the people to act together, so that they can hold discussions for the sake of forming a common will, in accordance with which they will act, a very high degree of connectedness with each other, a sense of common identity is required. Such a society presupposes a common trust, which should be shared by all members and groups of this society. People need to be sure that they are truly participants in the consensus-building process, that their opinions will be heard, and that their views will be taken into account by everyone else. Without mutual loyalty, trust is doomed to entropy.

Thus, a new type of collective actor is emerging in Modern times. It is with this actor that people identify themselves, it is conceived as the realization/guarantor of their freedom, it is the locus of their national/cultural self-expression (most often we are dealing with a combination of one and the other). There is no doubt that even in pre-modern societies, people "identified" with their own regimes, with consecrated kings, or with hierarchical orders. Most often, they did it out of good will. However, in the age of democracy, we identify as free actors. That is why the concept of the people's will plays such an important role in the legitimizing idea.10
This means that the modern democratic state as a whole has recognized common goals or points of reference, key concepts through which it can claim the right to be considered a bulwark of freedom and a locus of self-expression for its citizens. Regardless of whether these claims are justified, the State - in order to be legitimate - must be imagined by its citizens in this way.

The modern state is faced with a question that has no analogues in history: why or for whom does this exist?

10. Rousseau, who was one of the first to state this logic, was well aware that the democratic sovereign cannot be a mere "sum of forces"; he must be an "association", that is, a strong collective actor, a "moral and collective body" with its unity, with its common Self, with its life and will. The latter concept should be considered a key one, since what gives this body its personality is precisely the "general will" (See Rousseau J. J. On the social contract, or principles of political law / / Rousseau J. J. On the social contract. Trektaty, Moscow: Moscow Terra-Knizhny klub, Kanon-press-Ts, 2000. Kn. I. Ch. 6. pp. 207-209).

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the state? Whose freedom, whose will, does it express? This question would not make any sense in the context of the Austrian or Turkish empires-although, of course, in this case, the question " for whom?" one might well reply with a reference to the Habsburg or Ottoman dynasties; but this answer will hardly give you any insight into their legitimizing ideas.

It is in this sense that we can say that the modern state has what I would call a political identity, understood as a universally recognized answer to the question: "for whom / what does the state exist?". It should be distinguished from the identities of the members of the state, that is, from those numerous and diverse points of reference that determine for each of the citizens what is important in their individual lives. However, it is desirable that these identities overlap in some way, if, of course, the members of the State want to feel strongly connected to it; however, in any case, the identities of individuals and groups that they make up will always be richer and more complex, as well as more diverse than political identities. 11
* * *

In other words, a modern democratic state needs a "people" with a strong collective identity. Democracy requires more solidarity and much greater commitment from us to succeed than was required by the hierarchical and authoritarian societies of the past. In the good old days of Austria-Hungary, a Polish peasant in Galicia could not even think about the Hungarian village squires, the Prague bourgeoisie, or the Venetian workers - this did not threaten the stability of the state in any way. This state of affairs proved unacceptable only when the ideas of the people's Government began to spread. It is in this situation that subgroups that have not been or cannot be connected to each other in a single whole begin to demand their own state. This is the era of nationalism, the collapse of empires. I spoke about the political necessity of creating a strong common identity, of the people as a deliberative whole. However

11. I have already considered this relation: Taylor, Ch. (1996) "Les Sources de l'identite modern", in M. Elbaz, A. Fortin and G. Laforest (eds) Les Frontieres de l'identite: Modernite et postmodernisme au Quebec, pp. 347-364. Sainte - Foy, Quebec: Presses de l'Universite Laval.

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this is obvious for a number of other reasons. Thinkers in the tradition of civic humanism, from Aristotle to Arendt, have pointed out that free societies require far more loyalty and participation from their members than despotic and authoritarian societies. Citizens should do for themselves what the rulers do for them in other contexts. However, this is possible only if they feel a strong connection with their political community, and therefore with those who make up this community together with them.

If we look at it from another point of view, then we must say this: because of the need of these societies for loyalty, without which no common work is possible, and also because the situation when someone takes on all the burden of participation, and someone just enjoys the benefits, is completely unacceptable, free societies again require a higher level of mutual trust. In other words, they are highly sensitive to citizens ' distrust of each other, for example, distrust that someone else does not share their loyalty to the community - this other person does not pay taxes, or deceives the social security system, or, as an employer, enjoys a good state of the labor market, but does not doesn't want to incur any social costs. Such distrust creates a huge strain that threatens to bring down the entire ecosystem of morals necessary for a democratic society to function properly. Constant, constantly reanimated mutual loyalty is the basis of any measures to restore trust.

The relationship between the nation and the State is often viewed from only one side: it is as if it were always the nation that sought to ensure its existence through the State. However, we can also talk about the exact opposite process. In order to be viable, States often take measures to maintain a sense of mutual belonging among their citizens. For example, it is a very important motif in the history of Canada. In order to form a State in a democratic era, society is forced to take on the difficult and never completely impossible task of defining its own collective identity.

Thus, what I have called political identity is extremely important for modern democratic States. This identity is usually partially determined

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through some basic principles (democracy, human rights, equality), and partly through autochthonous historical, linguistic, or religious traditions. It is not surprising that the features of this identity can acquire a quasi-sacral status, since changing them or rejecting them may well seem like a threat to the very foundation of unity, without which a democratic state simply cannot function.

It is in this context that some historical institutional arrangements may seem untouchable. They appear to be, on the one hand, an essential element of the basic principles of the regime, and, on the other, a key component of its historical identity. This is exactly what happens with Laicism and the references to it made by many French Republicans. The irony is that in the context of modern (multicultural) identity politics, they resort to this principle as a key feature of (French) identity. This is a sad but understandable situation. I see this example as another illustration of a common truth: modern democracies, as they diversify, will be forced to undergo a process of redefining their historical identities. It is not necessary to mention that the consequences of such redefinition will be the most serious, as well as quite painful.

6

Now I would like to highlight a very interesting point that Jurgen Habermas reminds us of in his Das Politische 12: initially, political power was defined and justified by cosmological-religious concepts. It was defined in terms of "political theology" 13. Habermas believes that modern secular states can be transformed into a new state.-

12. See Habermas Yu. Chto takoe politicheskoe [What is political] / / Internet resource "Russian Journal" (http://russ.ru/Mirovaya-povestka/CHto-takoe-politicheskoe, accessed 24.08.2011).

13. "In dieser symbolischen Dimension entsteht jene legitimationswirksame Legierung aus Politik und Religion, auf sich der Begriff des Politischen bezieht" ("Thus, this symbolic dimension is a manifestation of the confusion of politics and religion to which the concept of 'political ' refers"). Habermas Yu. What is political?

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it's red to do without a similar concept. This doesn't seem quite right to me.

The decisive transition that took place in the modern West in the seventeenth century, a transition that took us away from cosmological-religious concepts of order, establishes a new view of society - a bottom-up view. Such a society exists for the protection and mutual benefit of its (equal) members. This new concept is combined with a powerful normative vision, which I propose to call the "modern moral order".14. It sanctifies three principles (according to one of the possible lists): (1) the rights and freedoms of its members; (2) their equality (which, naturally, has been interpreted in different ways, mutating over time towards increasingly radical concepts); (3) the principle that any rule is based on consensus (which was also defended in more or less radical forms).

These basic norms were developed within a number of philosophical anthropologies and based on completely different concepts of human sociality. These norms overcame the atomism that narrowed the worldview of the thinkers who formulated them, such as Locke or Hobbes. Basic norms have become more or less inseparable from modern liberal democracies.

The rejection of rootedness in cosmological-religious concepts was achieved through a new concept of the "political", a new basic norm, which, as Lefort suggested, implies its own representation of political power. The peculiarity of this representation is that the central place in it is paradoxically empty. The concept of sovereignty is preserved, but no group or individual can be identified with it.

Democratic societies are not necessarily organized around a "civil religion," as Rousseau believed. But they do need a powerful "philosophy of citizenship" that sanctifies the three norms that in modern societies are often referred to as (1) human rights, (2) equality and non-discrimination, and (3) democracy.

However, in some cases, a civil religion is quite natural; for example, a religious worldview, which is incorporated into the State of religion.-

14. См. Taylor, Ch. Modern Social Imaginaries.

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It articulates and justifies the philosophy of citizenship. This was the case in the case of the young American Republic. It has become what it has become as a result of God's providential plan for humanity ("We hold truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal..."). Or this civil religion may be part of a non-religious or even anti-religious ideology, as, for example, in the history of the First French Republic. It can even be argued that such comprehensive views seem quite "natural"for many of our contemporaries. After all, the principles of our citizenship philosophy call for a fundamental justification. If our agreement on the principles is so important, then the situation will only improve if we also accept the general rationale for these principles. Or so it might seem, and the centuries-old traditions of political life seem to support this idea.

Indeed, the overlapping consensus between different founding views on a common philosophy of citizenship is something completely new in the history of mankind and relatively untested. Accordingly, the risk is also high. In addition, we often suspect that those who hold other views will not be able to truly subscribe to these principles and will not be as faithful to them as we are (because "we" know that "atheists cannot have principles"; or (other) "we" know that "all religions oppose freedom and / or equality").

The problem is that a true pluralistic democracy can no longer return to a civil religion or anti-religion, however convenient, without betraying its own principles. We are simply doomed to live in an overlapping consensus.

7

We have shown above how our well-motivated desire to fetishize historical mechanisms can prevent us from seeing the secular regime in a more favorable light, bringing to the fore the main goals we pursue, as well as allowing us to recognize and reflect on the dilemmas we face. However, such fetishization is associated with another major cause of puta-

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which was already mentioned above. It's about our obsession with religion as a problem. In many Western countries, we have managed to move from the initial stage, when secularism was a hard-won reward that allowed us to overcome religious dominance, to a stage of such a wide variety of fundamental beliefs, religious and non-religious, that only a very clear understanding of the need to balance freedom of conscience and equality can allow us to take adequate measures in response to the challenge Otherwise, we run the risk of relying on the power of our historical institutional mechanisms to unnecessarily restrict the religious freedom of immigrant minorities, making them understand that they are in no way our equal, if we take into account the traditional, established mainstream.

Let us recall the argument of the Germans who banned the hijab for teachers. The ban was due to the fact that this is a figure of power, but do we want to say that only people who are not marked in any way can act as authorities? Do we mean to say that those whose religious practices make them stand out should not enjoy authority in our society? This is probably a false signal for our children in an increasingly pluralistic society.

However, the obsession with religion as a problem is not just a historical relic. Our thought, as well as many of our great thinkers, are stuck in the old rut. They want to preserve a special place for religion, but not for reasons that are flattering for religion.

How should we evaluate the following idea, which Rawls shared for some time: in religious and philosophical terms, a pluralistic democracy can legitimately require citizens to speak only the language of reason in public space, leaving their religious beliefs outside the public sphere? To Rawls's credit, the tyrannical nature of such an imperative was quickly recognized. However, one should still ask the question of why such a point of view could even arise. Rawls believed that this restriction would encourage everyone to use the language that their fellow citizens might reasonably agree with. This idea goes something like this: a secular language is a language that is spoken by anyone, in this language-

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ke you can argue and agree. Religious language, in turn, is outside such a discourse, since it introduces external premises that only believers can agree with. "So let's all speak a common language," Rawls seems to conclude.

This notion is based on something resembling an epistemological division. There is a secular mind that everyone can use to draw certain conclusions - conclusions that everyone could agree with. But in addition to this, there are also special languages that introduce additional assumptions, sometimes even contradicting the assumptions from which the ordinary secular mind proceeds. These particular languages are more vulnerable from an epistemological point of view; you will not be convinced by them until you speak them yourself, becoming adherents of a particular religion. Thus, the religious mind either comes to the same conclusions as the secular mind, but then it is superfluous; or it comes to exactly the opposite conclusions, but then it is dangerous and destructive. It is for this reason that it should be avoided.

As for Habermas, he always noted the epistemological gap between secular reason and religious thought, preferring the former. Secular reason is sufficient to arrive at the normative conclusions that we need (concerning, for example, the establishment of a legitimate democratic State and the definition of our political ethics). Not so long ago, his position on religious discourse developed significantly, to the extent that he recognized that " the potential power [of discourse] makes religious speech in relation to relevant political issues a serious candidate for possible truth content." However, the basic epistemological division still remains. Thus, when it comes to the official language of the state, all religious references should be deleted: "For example, the rules of procedure in Parliament should allow presidents to delete religious positions or excuses from the protocol." 15
15. Habermas Yu. Religion and publicity. Cognitive prerequisites for the "public use of reason" of religious and secular citizens. Between naturalism and religion. Philosophical articles, Moscow: "The Whole World", 2011, p. 126. Habermas is right, of course: official language in pluralistic democracies should avoid specific religious references (but this does not mean excluding disputes in the assembly itself); however, it is not the case that they are specifically religious references.

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Do Rawls and Habermas ' positions point to the fact that they have not yet understood the normative basis of the modern secular state? I believe that they are somewhat right when they say that a secular state presupposes the existence of zones whose language should be neutral. However, these zones do not include - contrary to Rawls - discussions of citizens, as well as meetings in the legislative assembly, as Habermas believes, judging by the above quote. The zone in question can be described as the official language of the State: the language of legislation, administrative decisions, and court decisions. Obviously, the law passed by Parliament cannot contain such justifying formulas as: "The Bible informs us... therefore...". The same is true, mutatis mutandis, for the justification of a legal decision in a court verdict. However, such prohibitions have nothing to do with the specific nature of religious language. Such legislative formulations will be equally incorrect: "Because Marx showed that religion is the opium of the people..." or " Because Kant showed that the only absolute good is good will...". The reason for excluding such statements is the neutrality of the state.

The State may well be neither Christian nor Islamic, but it should also be neither Marxist, nor Kantian, nor utilitarian. Naturally, a democratic state will eventually be forced to enact laws that (ideally) They are a reflection of the real beliefs of its citizens, and these beliefs will be either Christian or Muslim, and so on - that is, the entire palette of views held by people in modern society will be presented. However, the decision cannot be framed in such a way as to contain a special recognition of any of these views. This is not very easy to do; dividing lines are quite difficult to draw, and they always need to be drawn again. But such is the nature of what is commonly called a modern secular state. What are more acceptable alternatives for pluralistic democracies?16

religious, but in the fact that not everyone shares them. Just as unacceptable as a reference to the authority of the Bible, any "taking into account" clause related to atheistic philosophy should be considered.

16. I am not sure if I disagree with Habermas, or if the differences in wording can really be traced back to differences in practice. We're both at-

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Another point: the idea that state neutrality is a response to diversity is quite problematic for "secular" people in the West. These people retain their bizarre obsession with religion as something strange and possibly even threatening. Such sentiments are fueled not only by the past and present conflicts of liberal states with religion, but also by an epistemological division: religiously oriented thought is somehow less rational than purely "secular" thinking. This attitude has a political justification (religion as a threat), but also an epistemological justification (religion as something flawed from the point of view of reason).17.

Both of these points can be found in Mark Lilla's popular contemporary book, " The Stillborn God." On the one hand, Lilla tries to argue that there is a huge gap between thinking that is colored by political theology and "thinking and talking about politics in purely human terms"18. Modern people " have freed and isolated purely political questions from thinking about divine affairs. Politics, intellectually speaking, has become an autonomous field that deserves independent consideration, focused on a very specific goal-ensuring peace and abundance that corresponds to human dignity. These aspirations culminated in the Great Division. 19 We learn the contexts in which the language of the state should respect the principle of neutrality, but at the same time those contexts in which freedom of speech should be unlimited. Rather, our difference concerns a difference in rationale rather than recommended practice.

17. Quite often, the obligation of citizens to address their fellow citizens in the language of secular reason is justified through the obligation to make their own position understandable to others. "The self-understanding of a democratic constitutional state was formed within the framework of a philosophical tradition that appeals to" natural" reason, that is, exclusively to public arguments, according to its claim, equally accessible to all people " (Habermas Yu. Religion and publicity, p. 114). But what is the basis of the argument that "natural reason" is a kind of ideological Esperanto? Couldn't Martin Luther King's secular fellow citizens understand exactly what he meant when he wrapped his discourse on equality in biblical terms? How many more people would have understood him if he had relied on Kant? Also, how exactly do you separate a religious language from a secular one? Is the "golden rule of morality" a statement in the first or second language?

18. Lilla, M. (2007) The Stillborn God, p. 5. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

19. Ibid., p. 162.

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such metaphors of radical division imply that human-centered political thought is a more reliable source for answering questions about this area than theories colored by political theology. This is the essence of epistemological ranking. At the end of her book, Lilla urges us not to let our guard down and allow the Great Divide to be reversed.20 This appeal implicitly implies the existence of such a danger: the return of religion is something threatening.21
8

This phenomenon deserves a deeper study. Ideally, you should carefully analyze both grounds for distrust, comment on them, and then show their negative political consequences. However, in this article I have room only to consider the epistemological justification.

It seems to me that it draws its strength from what I would call the Enlightenment myth. There is a very widespread view that Enlightenment (Aufklarung, Lumieres) is a transition from darkness to light, that is, an absolute transition from thinking full of errors and illusions to thinking through which the truth is finally achieved. Here we should also add the opposite view, which is characteristic of "reactionary" thought: the Enlightenment is a delusion, it is an era of mass oblivion of the necessary saving truths concerning human nature.

In discussions about modernity, the more nuanced approaches are very quickly pushed aside by these two. Here, a phrase from Matthew Arnold immediately comes to mind: "The armies of the ignorant are thundering in the night."

* * *

Instead of lamenting this sad state of affairs, I would like to try to explain what is at the heart of understanding Enlightenment as an absolute, unconditional step

20. Lilla, M. (2007) The Stillborn God, pp. 305 - 306.

21.Habermas is an exceptional figure in many ways, but let me point out that while he is one of the main proponents of the epistemological separation of religion and reason (for which I am going to criticize him), he is equally determined not to share the political distrust of religion that often accompanies epistemological distrust.

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forward. In fact, this is the" myth " of the Enlightenment. (This interpretation may be repugnant, since" myth " is often interpreted as something that the Enlightenment saved us from.)

The game is worth the candle, as this myth is even more widespread than you might imagine. The most sophisticated thinkers who would refute it if they met it face-to-face, in a number of contexts, seem to rely on it.

There is a very widespread perception of Enlightenment as a transition from a sphere in which Revelation or religion in general was considered a source of knowledge about human affairs, to a sphere in which these affairs are understood in purely worldly or human terms. Of course, this is not an attempt to challenge the fact that some people made this transition themselves. What is really worth discussing is the idea that this transition implies a self-evident epistemological move, the essence of which is to put aside the dubious truth of Revelation and focus on issues that we can actually solve for ourselves and that are really relevant to us. This transition is usually presented as a movement from Revelation to " reason alone "(i.e., Kant's blosse Vernunft).

Obvious examples of this attitude can be found in the works of contemporary political thinkers, such as Rawls or Habermas. Despite all the differences, the latter tend to reserve a special status for non-religious reason (let's call this position the position of "only reason"), as if such reason were able to solve key moral and practical issues. They proceed from two premises: (a) the decisions of secular reason can be considered exhaustive by any honest and consistent thinker; (b) any religiously tinged conclusions will always be questionable and, ultimately, convincing only to those who have already agreed to the dogmas that are themselves in question.

In fact, these two premises are the basis of the idea that was discussed above (section 6), and it was this idea that both mentioned thinkers shared in one form or another for some time. The idea is to limit the use of religious language in the realm of public reason. It is worth mentioning that such a claim has been rejected in one way or another by both political philosophers; however, we note that the claim itself is not true.

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meaningless as long as positions (a) and (b) are not true. Rawls ' position, while advocating such a restriction, was that the public mind should fundamentally use universally accessible concepts. And the only concepts that meet this criterion are those of "only reason" (a), whereas religious language, by its very nature, will never be capable of such a thing (b).

* * *

Before going any further, I would like to point out that such a division, which concerns the rational reliability of religious and non-religious discourses and is assumed by the premises (a) + (b), seems to me completely devoid of grounds. It is possible that religion is really based on an illusion, and, accordingly, everything that is deduced from it should be less trusted. However, until this is proven, we have no a priori reason to consider it worthy of any greater suspicion. The reliability of this division is based on the thesis that some completely "worldly" argument is sufficient to draw reasonable moral and political conclusions. By "sufficient" I mean (a): that is, that it should be considered exhaustive by any honest and consistent thinker. These kinds of judgments do occur - they range from "2+2=4" to some of the more well-founded judgments of modern natural sciences. However, the fundamental beliefs necessary to answer questions about the very foundations of political morality are by no means among them. The two most popular secular philosophies of the modern world, utilitarianism and Kantianism in their various versions, contain propositions that can hardly convince any honest and consistent person. If we take the key propositions of our modern political morality - for example, the statement about the natural rights of man, about his right to life - then I do not understand why the fact that we are willing/enjoying / suffering beings, or the thesis that we are rational actors, should be considered a more reliable justification more right than the fact that we are created in the image and likeness of God. Yes, our ability to strada-

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This is one of the fundamental and indisputable propositions in the sense of (a), in contrast, for example, to our status as God's creatures, but what follows normatively from the first proposition is much less obvious than what follows from the second proposition.

The division I am analyzing would be much more reliable if we had a "secular" argument that irrefutably justifies the idea of rights. This is probably the crux of our differences with Habermas. He finds this solid foundation in the "ethics of discourse", which, unfortunately, I cannot recognize as sufficiently convincing.

The division of (a) + (b) in relation to the moral and political sphere is one of the consequences of the Enlightenment myth; or rather, it is one of the forms that this myth can take. It would be interesting to trace the formation of this illusion through a whole series of movements, partly fully founded, and partly based on illusions. In my other essay 22, I identified three movements, of which the first two are relatively well studied, and the third needs to be described in more detail. The first two will be briefly outlined here.

The first is (1) fundamentalism, which is primarily associated with Descartes. Fundamentalism combines a (supposedly) undisputed point of reference (concrete ideas in the mind) with an undisputed method (the method of clear and distinct ideas), so that conclusions can be drawn from this that would satisfy condition (a). But this design fails in two places. Indisputable points of reference can be challenged by consistent skepticism, as demonstrated by Hume; the method relies too much on an a priori argument and not enough on empirical data.

However, despite the fact that his fundamentalism and his a priori physics were rejected, Descartes left behind (1) a belief in the importance of finding the correct method and (2) a key description of what the position of "only reason"is based on. He believed that he had succeeded in abstracting himself from any external authority, whether that of society or tradition, or that imposed by parents or teachers, and in relying only on what the monologue mind could verify as valid.-

22. См. Taylor, Ch. "Die Blosse Vernunft" ("Reason alone").

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the correct one. The correct use of reason leads to results that are different from what we get when we rely on authority. In the Western tradition, a paradigmatic example of external distortion is considered to be a religious revelation. As the Marquis de Condorcet wrote in his description of the progress of the human mind:

Finally, it was allowed to loudly proclaim the right, so long unrecognized , to subordinate all views to our own reason, that is, to use for the understanding of truth the only instrument that is given to us in order to know it. Each man learned with some pride that nature had not intended him to believe the word of another; and the ancient superstition, the humiliation of reason before the delirium of supernatural belief, disappeared from society as well as from philosophy.23
The power of our thinking is postulated here as autonomous and self-sufficient. Reason, in the full sense of the word, accepts nothing on "faith," whatever that "faith" may mean. This principle may well be called the "self-sufficient mind" principle. The history of its formation and emancipation is usually considered as the process of humanity's coming of age. Shortly before Condorcet, this idea was formulated by Kant: enlightenment is " the exit of a person from the state of his minority, in which he finds himself through his own fault." The motto of this era is sapere aude, meaning "have the courage to use your own mind!" 24

The first crucial step was the transition to a self-sufficient mind. The second step was to point to the natural sciences as a model for the science of society, as we can see in Hobbes, for example. I will not elaborate on this point here, since reductionist views of social science are much less well-received today than they used to be (although, alas, they still hold water).

23. Condorcet Zh. A. Sketch of the historical picture of the progress of the human mind, Moscow: Book House "LIBROCOM", 2010, p. 175. I learned a lot from an interesting discussion: Descombes, V. (2007) Le raisonnement de Fours, pp. 163 - 178. Paris: Seuil.

24. I. Kant. Answer to the question: What is Enlightenment? / / Kant I. Sochineniya v 8 tt. T. 8. M.: "Choro", 1994. p. 29.

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* * *

All the issues I have discussed deserve much more detailed consideration than what has been presented on these pages. But I am simply convinced that further analysis will make my revisionist project even more credible. I will repeat my position once again: the "secular" regimes of modern democracy should be understood not as bastions erected against religion, but as sincere attempts to achieve the three (or four) main goals that I outlined at the very beginning of the article. This means that instead of remaining faithful to a devastated tradition, democracies must continually adjust their institutional arrangements to maximize the realization of the main goal of ensuring freedom and equality of fundamental beliefs.

Translated from English by Dmitry Uzlaner

Bibliography/References

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