Review: The Philosophy of Reenchantment, edited by Michiel Meijer and Herbert De Vriese

Abstract

This book is part of the Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy series. According to the editors its primary aim is to present a philosophical study and defense of the idea of enchantment, a response to cultural trends of the modern world where life for humanity has become disenchanted. Disenchantment as a concept, originally credited to the German sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920), emphasizes that as modern society has become secularized and increasingly scientistic it has been accompanied by a desacralization and demystification of life, with various ramifications. The Philosophy of Reenchantment seeks the recovery of enchantment and addresses the role of the sacred.The volume originated in a conference on “Varieties of Reenchantment in a Disenchanted World,” held at the University of Antwerp in December 2018. Conference participants recognized that the debate over reenchantment is not always coherent or well-organized, allowing for a wide range of conceptions and meanings across participating fields related to philosophy. The editors’ goal is to offer an integrated discussion about the meaning of these concepts. Much of the book is an investigation of how religion, secularism, and scientism may relate to disenchantment and whether religion is necessary for reenchantment, whether there’s a place for an enchanted naturalism without religion, and how various related conceptions are to be understood.The book is divided into three 3 sections: 1) Reenchantment and (A)Theism; 2) Genealogies of Reenchantment; and 3) Working with Reenchantment. Sections 1 and 2 have three articles apiece. Part 3 has five articles. These are accompanied by an introduction and an epilogue. There are notes and bibliographies at the end of each chapter.The first section examines the subjects’ relation to theism. Charles Taylor compares reenchantment to a beautiful work of art that points to beauty being there. John Cottingham argues that the theist is not so much positing extra entities in nature, as refusing to accept the account of “nature” as exhausted by the categories of the physical sciences. For Cottingham, God, meaning, and value are real. Akeel Bilgrami asks the question whether there is a form of secular enchantment. He answers that secular enchantment that finds value in nature, such as advocated by Richard Dawkins, “is quite properly, then, an enchantment about the natural,” though not making them true (69).Guido Vanheeswijck claims in the second part of the book that there is no contrast between granting the impossibility of living in a completely disenchanted world and accepting that a specific form of disenchantment has taken place since the sixteenth century with its inevitable repercussions on any future form of reenchantment. A related observation is that different theologies affect enchantment differently. It’s not simply belief or disbelief in deity. Paolo Costa shows that recent German sociology has questioned Weber’s thesis through “disenchanting disenchantment.” He observes that the thesis of Weber has been dissected by Hans Joas, who shows how Weber’s own assumptions spill over into his disenchantment thesis.In Part 3, Sophie-Grace Chappell advocates an “enchanted realism” where the need is for “dis-dis-enchanting ourselves” by clearing out the preconceptions and prejudices that fog our mind (161). She proposes an “enchanted realism,” which includes an inseparably integral aspect of value (165). Michiel Meijer argues for a realist experience of values, that moral values are real, and that there is moral truth as a necessary part of reenchantment. But he cautions against making it “robust” and turning it into a thing to describe rather than something personally experienced. This he calls reenchantment without reification.All in all, this series of essays is an excellent scholarly introduction to this nascent subfield of reenchantment within philosophy of religion. The contributors seem to be mostly moral realists, if not religious. The book raises many important issues and questions as to what reenchantment means and whether the concept itself is reified to the point of adequate engagement. There is indeed ambiguity as reenchantment can be interpreted many ways—philosophically, sociologically, psychologically, religiously, even politically and economically. But for anyone looking into the subject, this book is one of the first places to begin.