Theme
According to classical theories in a range of disciplines, the progressive “disenchantment” of the world is one of the key aspects of the history of Western modernity. In recent years, however, a growing number of scholars have begun to challenge this view. They identify sources and countermovements of reenchantment within the cultural matrix of Western modernity. On the philosophical front, too, some scholars explicitly argue for the possibility of reenchantment within the prevailing disenchanted worldview.
In aesthetics, they refer to reenchantment in order to explain the specific role played by art and literature as sources of new meaning in the modern age. In philosophy of science, they advance alternative conceptions of experience beyond the confines of the dominant naturalistic epistemology of modern science. In philosophy of religion, they present a more complex and less linear interpretation of the history of secularization in the West, and argue for new forms of enchantment and religious understanding in defense of a more humane conception of philosophy. In metaethics, they seek to retrieve a world suffused with value by arguing that moral properties are fundamentally different from natural ones and/or that we need to adopt a broader, non-scientistic type of naturalism to solve the question of their relation. In philosophical anthropology, they claim that there is no place for disenchantment when it comes to explaining human nature and human agency.
The current philosophical debate over reenchantment, then, is far from being a coherent and well-organized discussion, as it allows for a wide range of conceptions and applications across distinct philosophical domains. During this two-day conference, scholars from various philosophical backgrounds will help us bring more clarity to this debate.