《现代性及其不满》读后感精选( 七 ) modernity|modern|debate|book|M

Another example is the analysis of Hobbes’s critique of religion in the third part of Leviathan. Most readings of Hobbes have focused on his first two parts of Leviathan, “On Man” and “On the Commonwealth”, in which Hobbes presents his theory of the state of nature and the social contract, while neglected the third and the fourth part, “Of the Christian Commonwealth” and “Of the Kingdom of Darkness”, in which Hobbes presents his critique of the religion and the Christianity. This kind of neglect, according to Smith, results in the loss of the theological dimension of Hobbes. Only the recent interest in political theology turned some readers to these parts of Leviathan and the role of religion in Hobbes’s theory. Instead of the opinion that Hobbes’s attention to religion is accidental or reading of Hobbes as a theorist of natural law, the critique of religion consists the core of Hobbes’s political philosophy. His aim was to rebuild the foundation of the religion so that the spiritual and temporal power could be united. In Leviathan, Hobbes actually provided two analyses of religion, one natural account, and the other prophetic account. In his natural account, Hobbes traced the origin of religion back to men’s curiosity about the cause of things. Men’s ignorance of causes results in anxiety and fear, which gave rise to the imaginary powers that human believed as the arbiters of our fate. Religion in this account is a projection of the imagination as a result of fear. The disposition of fear and anxiety by Hobbes was turned into the virtually universal experience of all mankind in the state of nature. The fear was redirected for the sovereign. The stability, prosperity, and even civil liberty provided by the sovereign helped to alleviate this kind of fears. It is based on this fear and anxiety that Hobbes created the bourgeois morality, a morality aiming at avoiding pain and violent death with the endless pursuit of desire. While more important is Hobbes’s prophetic account of religion which consists of twelve chapters of the second half of Leviathan, compared with two chapters of his natural account. The reason why Hobbes contribute great volume on this issue is that Hobbes fully understand the ｓｃｒｉｐｔure offers the deepest, the most profound challenge to the claims of a scientific politics. He had to show the irrelevance between the religious teaching and reason but not the contradiction. Whereas his critique on the Kingdom of Darkness refused the authority of the clergy and provided the possibility of the sovereign power, his skepticism reserved the room for faith by limiting the reason. As a tolerationist understanding of Hobbes suggested, his worship consist of the combination of outward abeyance and inner freedom.
Although the main method of this book is the detailed analysis of the text, this book not restricted to it and cannot be simply perceived as a Straussian history of the idea of the modernity, which excluding everything except major works of exceptional political philosophers. On the contrast, this historical tracing back also includes figures and their works like Benjamin Franklin and his Autobiography which is commonly read as an American literature. Famous readers of Franklin like Max Weber and Lawrence read Franklin and his Autobiography wrong because they fail to see the irony, the humor and the sheer joie de vivre[2] in this work, which results in a wrong interpretation of Puritanism from Franklin as Weber did in his Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism. According to Smith, this book should be read as a book of education, which is a story of self-improvement, involving the appreciation of fallibility and the imperfection of human being. Franklin provided his plan for the religious and moral reform and raised a new standard for them with the principle of toleration and the bourgeois morality, based on his pragmatism and his belief in progress and improvement. Although he did not mention politics directly, Smith analyzed that Franklin endorsed a conception of politics based on the ideas of progress and civic improvement. Best politics for Franklin is the politics which could achieve its goal through bloodless means of persuasion and negotiation, and his ideal party is the precursor of the modern political parties which includes the formed opposition.