Contesting Philosophical Secularism: The Case for Pluralist Secularism

Abstract

This chapter identifies the failures of philosophical secularism to undermine religiously sanctioned normative systems in motivating everyday life. It explores a conception of pluralist secularism, which aims to achieve a normative reconciliation of the potentially conflicting concepts of secular statehood and public religious presence. Philosophical secularism has been the most prominent model of secularism experienced – often coercively imposed – in Muslim societies. The principle of state neutrality towards religion has also been used as “a technology of modern governance that ensures the state’s sovereign right to regulate all domains of social life, a necessary part of which is religion”. Critical religion theorists such as Talal Asad and Saba Mahmood argue that the liberal conception of religion is individualistic, Protestant-centric and aesthetic/spiritual and marginalises other religions that do not go through the same formation of secular modernity,.