Secular Powers: Humility in Modern Political Thought

"Cooper challenges the standard view that modern political secularism displaces God as the ultimate authority in favor of putting humans in that place. Secularism does not inevitably lead to self-deification, but is compatible with humanity. She argues that each of the three major theorists of the early period, Thomas Hobbes, Benedict Spinoza, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, emphasizes that humans have to recognize their finitude or limitations and that, paradoxically, this finitude is the source of human empowerment. . . .Recommended."-- "Choice" (7/1/2014 12:00:00 AM)

"Cooper has undertaken an impressive survey of the historical and contemporary literatures to elucidate and explain the limitations posed by the mistaken presumption that self-aggrandizement is a corollary of secularization. An erudite and truly excellent study, Secular Powers is positioned to make an extremely important contribution to contemporary arguments about the fortunes and possibly the future of secularism in political life."--Samantha L. Frost, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

"Cooper's Secular Powers wrestles with an enduring idea from which the West seems not to be able to escape, and by which the self-understanding of the modern West, in particular, has been hobbled: Augustine's antinomy between the 'City of God' and the 'City of Man, ' between Christian humility oriented by the sovereignty of God, on the one hand, and secular agency that purportedly cannot but lose its way, on the other. . . . The question Cooper asks seems especially timely, . . . [and] Secular Powers is written with obvious care, not just with a view to scholarly adequacy but also about the current historical moment."-- "Perspectives on Politics" (9/18/2015 12:00:00 AM)

"Do we need God to be humble? If so, then it seems that secular humility is impossible, as any move towards denying God could imply deifying humanity. Cooper's challenging and illuminating Secular Powers provides close readings from key works of Hobbes, Spinoza, and Rousseau to fashion a genealogical narrative of humility within a secular context."-- "Dialogue"

"With Secular Powers, Cooper traces an alternative account of secularism, showing that the very feature critics single out for abuse--the relocation of divine sovereignty in the human individual--is in fact a central concern of early secularists, who predicated human empowerment upon the cultivation of a 'modest disposition.' Drawing on both little-studied works from the period and a broad range of current scholarship, Cooper makes a highly original contribution to an important interdisciplinary dialogue in the history of ideas."
--Hasana Sharp, McGill University

"In this beautifully written book, Cooper makes the case for modesty as the queen of the virtues. By focusing on Hobbes, Spinoza, and Rousseau, she shows how their philosophies rest less on the idea of the sovereign individual and the deification of human powers than on the embrace of 'finitude' and an awareness of our limitations. At a time when recent events have forced us to reckon yet again with the dangers of the unintended consequences of our actions, this modest case for modesty could not be more timely."--Steven B. Smith, Yale University