Book Details

At the same time that dissatisfaction with the shape of church/staterelations is on the rise, liberalism is witnessing ever-spreadingpostmodern skepticism regarding the theoretical soundness of its coreprinciples. What do these two trends have to do with one another?Potentially a great deal, according to J. Judd Owen, who contends thatthe liberal posture to religion cannot be divorced from, but rather liesas the deepest level of, the serious questions confronting liberalism'soriginal rationalist basis.

Through a careful critique of Richard Rorty, John Rawls, and StanleyFish, Owen argues that today's "post-rational" liberalisms can onlyevade or obscure, but cannot resolve, liberalism's perennial difficultywith religion. Yet by politically fostering an indifference to thequestion of religious truth, liberal rationalism itself shares blame forits present crisis. Antifoundationalism is thus not a radicalalternative to liberal rationalism, but its unintended byproduct. Presenting an original map of the current landscape of politicalthought, Owen's provocative book cuts across political science,philosophy, religion, and constitutional theory.