The mark of the sacred / Jean-Pierre Dupuy ; translated by M.B. DeBevoise.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dupuy, Jean-Pierre, 1941- author.

Contributor:

DeBevoise, M. B., translator.

Series:

Cultural memory in the present

Standardized Title:

Marque du sacré. English

Language:

English

French

Subjects (All):

Religion and sociology.

Catastrophical, The.

Faith and reason.

Holy, The.

Physical Description:

pages cm.

Place of Publication:

Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2013.

Summary:

Jean-Pierre Dupuy has long warned that modern society is on a path to self-destruction. In this book, he pleads for a subversion of this crisis from within, arguing that it is our lopsided view of religion and reason that has set us on this course. In denial of our sacred origins and hubristically convinced of the powers of human reason, we cease to know our own limits: our disenchanted world leaves us defenseless against a headlong rush into the abyss of global warming, nuclear holocaust, and the other catastrophes that loom on our horizon. Reviving the religious anthropology of Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, and Marcel Mauss and in dialogue with the work of René Girard, Dupuy shows that we must remember the world's sacredriess in order to keep human violence in check. He tracks the sacred in the very fields where human reason considers itself most free from everything it judges irrational: science, technology, economics, political and strategic thought. In making such claims, The Mark of the Sacred takes on religion bashers, secularists, and fundamentalists at once. Written by one of the deepest and most versatile thinkers of our time, it militates for a world where reason is no longer an enemy of faith. Philosopher Jean-Pierre Dupuy holds professorships at the Ecole Polytechnique, Paris, and Stanford University. At the Ecole Polytechnique he founded and directed the Applied Epistemological Research Center (CREA). He is a member of the French Academy of Technology. Book jacket.

Contents:

Prologue : the form of the sacred

Imagining the end : a personal journey

Science : a theology in spite of itself

Religion : natural vs. supernatural

Rationality and ritual : the Babylon lottery

Justice and resentment : corruption of the best

The nuclear menace : a new sacrament for humanity

Epilogue : variations on vertigo.

Notes:

"Originally published in French under the title La marque du sacré."

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

9780804776899

080477689X

9780804776905

0804776903

OCLC:

841201192