Wow! eBook
Religion, Science, and Democracy: A Disputational Friendship
Author(s): Lisa L. Stenmark (Author)
- Publisher: Lexington Books (UK)
- Publication Date: 8 Mar. 2013
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 238 pages
- ISBN-10: 0739142860
- ISBN-13: 9780739142868
Book Description
This book suggests an alternative model for discourse, a disputational friendship, based on the work of Hannah Arendt. This approach recognizes the role that authorities —and thus religion and science— play in public life, but undermines any attempt to privilege a particular authority, because it promotes the position of the storyteller, who never settles on a single story but always seeks to incorporate many particular stories into her account. A disputational friendship promotes storytelling not by seeking agreement, but by exploring areas of disagreement in order to create the space for more conversations and to generate more stories and additional interpretations. Successful discourse between religion and science is not measured by its ability to determine “truth” or “fact,” but by its ability to continually expand the discourse and promote public life and public judgment.
Editorial Reviews
Review
Stenmark makes a strong and attractive case for a morally adequate approach to religion and science that recognizes differences while granting greater equality.
The predominant public and academic discourse about religion and science in recent decades has focused on questions of truth. Lisa Stenmark here argues that this emphasis on ‘doctrines and discoveries’ is misguided, and represents a fundamental misunderstanding of both science and religion. Drawing on the thought of Hannah Arendt and engaging such prominent thinkers as John Rawls, Richard Rorty, Stanley Hauerwas, and Jeffrey Stout, Stenmark’s aim is nothing less than to shift debates about religion and science to what she sees as a more profitable direction, one that recognizes the political dimensions of discourse about concepts of neutrality, authority, and tradition that informs our understanding of both religion and science. Provocative and thought-provoking, Stenmark’s proposed model of ‘disputational friendship’ deserves attention as a new model of thinking about this most important of issues.
