Religious Scepticism and Disenchantment: The Case of Thomas Hobbes
What did secularization and disenchantment represent, as historical events? And what contributions did Christian and anti-Christian arguments make to these events? My talk will offer some tentative answers to these questions by focusing on Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan (1651), one of the foundational works of secular politics, in the context of Christian Hebraism. Although there is an ongoing debate regarding Hobbes’s religious opinions, I will argue that his interpretations of theology were both unorthodox and strategic, designed to support his attack on the Two Kingdoms doctrine and the division of authority between church and state that had contributed to the English Civil War. Hobbes invoked standard Protestant tropes regarding the cessation of oracles, prophecy, and miracles in order to delimit the ability of such events to serve as the basis for claims of authority independent from that of the state. To that extent, he contributed to the events later described by Max Weber as “disenchantment” (Entzauberung). However, Hobbes went further, interpreting the Bible itself as a mythologized account of political history, as his mentor Francis Bacon had done for pagan myths. Hobbes deployed arguments from classical Greek skepticism to label religion as a false appearance of politics, undermine Christianity, and return to a form of pagan civil religion.
SPEAKER: Robert A. Yelle, Ludwig Maximilian University
Scientific coordination: Massimo Leone, Direttore FBK-ISR
Cycle of seminars: “(Dis-)Enchantment in Religion and Ethics“
The talk will be held in English.
The presentation will be in-person in the FBK Aula Piccola while seats last and online.
Registration by May 9, 2024 at 12:00 a.m. is required in order to arrange the connection.
***
Ai sensi e ai fini del Regolamento UE n. 2016/679 - Regolamento generale sulla protezione dei dati (GDPR) e come descritto nell'Informativa sulla privacy per i partecipanti all'evento di FBK, si informa che l'evento potrebbe essere registrato e divulgato sui canali istituzionali della Fondazione. Per non essere ripresi o registrati, si potrà sempre disattivare la webcam e/o silenziare il microfono durante eventi virtuali oppure informare anticipatamente lo staff FBK che organizza l'evento.
