Adam B. Seligman

Ritual and sincerity: Certitude and the other

In this article, I develop an understanding of ritual and of sincerity as two ideal-typical modes of framing human action. I focus on the dangers of what I term the sincere model because it is so strongly counter-intuitive to the way we usually understand the world, the moral imperatives of action and the framing of our intersubjective universe. I will begin, however, with some brief remarks on ritual — not as a discrete realm of human endeavor, usually identified with ‘religious’ ritual (though inclusive of religious ritual), but rather as a particular modality of understanding action that is essential to the constitution of both social and individual selves and without which a shared world would not be possible.

Ritual and sincerity

In this article, I develop an understanding of ritual and of sincerity as two ideal-typical modes of framing human action. I focus on the dangers of what I term the sincere model because it is so strongly counter-intuitive to the way we usually understand the world, the moral imperatives of action and the framing of our intersubjective universe. I will begin, however, with some brief remarks on ritual — not as a discrete realm of human endeavor, usually identified with ‘religious’ ritual (though inclusive of religious ritual), but rather as a particular modality of understanding action that is essential to the constitution of both social and individual selves and without which a shared world would not be possible.

Inner-Worldly Individualism and the Institutionalization of Puritanism in Late Seventeenth-Century New England

This paper argues that one important « moment » in the development of the modern notion of the ethically autonomous individual was predicated on a particular set of historical circumstances connected with the transformation of Puritanism in the late seventeenth century. These included : a) the introjection within the individual of a particular dimension of grace; b) the development of a new set of individual and collective identities; c) the emergence of the above as a result of the particular problems of institutionalizing Puritan salvational doctrines within the orders of the world. Argument is made that these developments can only be properly appreciated when treated as a particular instance of the articular instance of the articulation and institutionalization of charisma in society. Analysis concentrates on seventeenth-century New England Congregational Puritanism as a paradigmatic case of the institutionalization of sectarian or ascetic-Puritanism. The problems of the early communities of « visible saints » to construct a polity based on « grace are analysed in terms of the particular contradictions inherent to Puritan ideas of grace as a charismatic model for social and political organization

Trust, Tolerance and the Challenge of Difference

This essay explores the distinction between trust and confidence both analytically and in terms of the historical development of trust in modern societies. It compares a moral community of trust to communities of confidence and questions the ability of such communities to accept, abide by and live with difference. Finally, it presents the age-old idea of tolerance as a plausible if under-theoretized concept for how to live with ethnic and religious differences in our new multicultural societies. Arguments for tolerance are drawn from the work of John Dewey and the American pragmatist tradition.

Secularism, Liberalism, and the Problem of Tolerance

If I understand it aright, the challenge we face is to explore if the separation of church and state is a precondition for freedom and democracy. If understood in strictly legal terms, the short answer I imagine would be, of course not. There are myriad of European countries, from England to Norway and Sweden to Spain, where there has, in this century, been no such strict legal separation of church and state— in Great Britain, the queen is, after all, the titular head of the Anglican Church. In all these countries there exists a multitude of modes of church-state accommodation not defined in terms of strict separation, and yet one would be hard pushed to claim these countries lacked freedom or democracy. Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Germany have, after all, concordats between state and church. Finland, Denmark, and England all have state churches (while Greece has a constitutionally defined “dominant religion”).1 Something else is thus clearly at stake and needs to be unpacked.

The Idea of Civil Society.

Seligman examines the notion of the civil society. He argues that the combination of individal rights and interests with a social and political system based on a shared morality found its clearest concrete expression in 18th-century America. Since then, successive societies and social experiments have sought in vain to approximate to the society in which individual interests and the public good are identical. The problems of modern mass democracies which require intense centralization to be functional, and the growth of socialism and the notion of unearned entitlements have served to undermine the foundations of the civil society.

Moral authority and reformation religion: On charisma and the origins of modernity

From the late 17th and 18th centuries, much of modern western social and political thought has developed in terms of the contract tradition of govern? ment. Within this tradition, the locus of moral authority has been posited as rooted within society. Jean Jacques Rousseau and Emile Durkheim may be con? sidered two of the foremost expounders of this conception.1 The apotheosis of society in the writings of Durkheim is, in a certain sense, a reformulation of Rousseaus concept of sovereignty rooted in the general will. These assumptions on the source of moral authority are, furthermore, rooted in some of the major intellectual traditions of Western Christian civiliza? tion. We may think for example of Vicos immanent historicist conceptions of natural equity and universal jurisprudence or of the republican tradition of civic humanism, as among its intellectual antecedents.2 The existence of precursors notwithstanding, the notion of moral authority as rooted in society, as a strain of political thought in the Western tradition calls for some inquiry, for a number of reasons. First, this tradition continues to be but one of a number of political traditions which defined the locus of moral authority in very different spheres. In this context Burkes traditionalism or Hegels World Spirit (or the marxian dialectic of history) exemplify alternative notions of the sources of moral ac? tion.3 Second, the conception of moral authority as resting in the community must be distinguished from the contract-tradition per se.4 That is, the very posit? ing of society in ethical terms adds a moral dimension to the notion of contract which was absent in the Utilitarian followers of David Hume. Third, this notion goes well beyond the concepts of natural law which ?in their various forms ?

Pluralism and Chinese Religions

What counts as the same? Judgments of sameness and difference are fundamental to how social groups create and define themselves over time and across space. This is never a purely objective decision because no two things, people, or groups are ever identical. Group identity thus depends in part on interpretive decisions about similarity and difference. This paper examines three primary mechanisms for such interpretation: (1) memory, in which we identify similarities that continue over time and are shared only with certain other people (e.g., memories of an ancestor or a local miracle); (2) mimesis, in which we create similarity by repeating actions over time (as in the performance of periodic rituals); and (3) metaphor, in which we come to see new similarities that had not been obvious before (typical of much conversion, for instance). Each of these modes of sameness and difference creates an alternative social dynamic, with different consequences for how people can live together socially. This presentation will analyze a range of Chinese religious behavior, from ancestor worship to Christian conversion. The approach suggests that theological considerations (as a form of memory) alone never fully determine the social importance of religion, that we need to understand the ability to impose particular interpretive frames, and that pluralism needs to be examined over time as well as space.

Reflexivity, Play, Ritual, and the Axial Age

This paper argues the centrality of play for any understanding of reflexivity and so indeed for human existence in the world. It ties both play and ritual to the human potential to create “as if” or subjunctive universes through which other realities can be tested, explored and judged. These aspects of human social existence, together with our ability to symbolize and hence notate our experience are explored in terms of their relation to the transformations of the Axial Age.

Enacting the Moral; Concrete Particularity and Subjunctive Space

This paper explores the nature of moral action. Its shows the mutability of what has been considered moral over time and is critical of its more contemporary identification with the ‘good will’ and good intentions. It argues instead for a circumscription of the arena of the moral to concrete and particular actions produced in the face of the overarching ambiguity which inheres in all our acts. It makes the counterintuitive claim that ritual practice provides an important propaedeutic to this type of moral action.