The author keeps repeating the obsolete argument that a...

The author keeps repeating the obsolete argument that a person’s rights and liberties, established after 1789, represent not so much a Christian inspiration, as “the enactment of a world of civil, enlightened life ( die Verrechtlichung einer bürgerlichen, aufgeklärten Lebenswelt )”[^13] , and sees in the “return of religion ( Wiederkehr der Religion )”, which we are witnessing, only “the return of a need for religion ( Wiederkehr eines religiösen Bedürfnisses ”)[^14] This being said, the Berlin philosopher continues to build the thesis according to which “only devised sovereignty, through the exclusion of all religious reminiscences, makes it possible for a constitution of liberty to exist”[^15] , and he defends the equivalence of the possibilities of liberties with the cultivation of “critical reason”.

He attributes only to the Enlightenment the reflexivity which, in time, has put cultures in motion. “As such, it is convenient to understand the Enlightenment ( Aufklärung ) and its engine, criticism, both from a historical perspective and a structural one, as an intellectual side of cultural modernisation in the sense of a reflexive progressive becoming of the cultures”[^16] Herbert Schnädelbach claims that “the idea of critical reason”, which is of Kantian origin, was not taken over by “the reason of faith” ( Vernunft des Glaubens )”[^17] and he holds, obviously incorrectly, that “obedience ( Gehorsam )” is nothing more than “giving up the examining criticism of what is heard”[^18] .

The contemporary offensive philosopher from Berlin wishes to re-establish, in its entirety, the Kantian criticism of cognitive reason and keeps proposing the examination of expressions and concepts before their being used.

Only that his analysis of the religious state in modern world sticks to this kind of conceptual examination without it being capable, for methodological reasons, of capturing the importance of religion in democracy and the role of religion representatives in the defence and renewal of democracy. Most importantly, there is the wise observation made by Peter L.

Berger that “there is a great risk of neglecting religion in today’s analysis”[^19] , even though the impacts of religion and of politics are complex, the philosopher from Berlin has left them aside. Most conclusive in reconstructing the separation thesis was John Rawls. The American philosopher sets out by explaining “public reason”, which conditions a “well-ordered constitutional democratic society”.