Alex Skinner
Biographic Data
| ID | 3739876 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alex Skinner |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alex |
| FAMILY NAME | Skinner |
| SIGNATURE | SKINNER A |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 33 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 8 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 8 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Foundations of Global Communication: A Conceptual Handbook
This book provides a wide-ranging theoretical and empirical overview of the disparate achievements and shortcomings of global communication. This exceptionally ambitious and systematic project takes a critical perspective on the globalization of communication. Uniquely, it sets media globalization alongside a plethora of other globalized forms of communication, ranging from the individual to groups, civil society groupings, commercial enterprises…
History of Religion as Critique of Religion?: David Hume and the Consequences
The Scottish eighteenth-century philosopher and historian David Hume can be considered a pioneer of the “natural history of religion” in the sense of a universal history of religion that is not based on theological presuppositions. This chapter offers a characterization of his methodological achievements and a reevaluation of his empirical claims concerning monotheism, polytheism, religion and tolerance. It also interprets the German reception of…
The Sacred and Power: Collective Self-Sacralization and Ways of Overcoming It
This chapter presents the outlines of an alternative to Max Weber’s narrative of disenchantment. It does so first by setting out a theory of the dynamics of sacralization in summary form. Second, this theory is applied to the history of the fusions of this dynamic and the dynamics of power formation and the history of the tensions between the two. The guiding thread for this alternative history is the topic of collective self-sacralization and th…
Fields of Tension: A New Interpretation of Max Weber’s “Intermediate Reflection”
Max Weber’s “Intermediate Reflection,” also known under the title “Religious Rejections of the World and Their Directions,” is usually interpreted as the classic text for a theory of the differentiation of value spheres. As such it has become part of the sociological canon. The new and very detailed interpretation presented in this chapter demonstrates that this view is problematic both with regard to Weber’s own intentions and in itself. An alte…
Multiple Forms of Ideal Formation or Process of Disenchantment?: Attempts at Synthesis by Ernst Troeltsch and Max Weber
More than any other authors around 1900, Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch developed a synthesis of the history, psychology, and sociology of religion. While in the conventional view the two thinkers were rather similar, this chapter contrasts them. I characterize Troeltsch’s views as a study of history that is open to ever new sacralizations. Weber’s notion of a world-historical process of disenchantment, meanwhile, I interpret and criticize as base…
Transcendence as Reflexive Sacredness: The “Axial Age” as a Turning Point in Religious History
This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the debate on the so-called Axial Age. It presents the major contributors from Karl Jaspers on, but also the predecessors in the 18th and 19th centuries. , It explores concepts such as the age of transcendence that have been used to characterize the fundamental innovation of that age. It particularly emphasizes the emergence of moral universalism in that period. The chapter also attempts to bring …
Religious Experience and the Theory of Signs
The foundation of the psychology of religion in the work of William James and others is a major methodological breakthrough in the empirical study of religion. This psychology of religion focuses on experience, offering an alternative to the emphasis on religious doctrines or institutions. This chapter first presents a reconstruction of William James’s relevant writings. It then compares them to the theological writings of Friedrich Schleiermache…
Ritual and the Sacred: On the Anthropology of Ideal Formation
Émile Durkheim’s sociology of religion is presented in this chapter not as a functionalist analysis, but as an understanding of religion that sees it as anchored in collective corporeal practices. These practices and the intense experiences to which they give rise lead to the attribution of sacredness to times, places, persons, and ideas and make ideals possible. This Durkheimian idea has a rich prehistory which is reconstructed here with a speci…
The Lumumba Generation: African Bourgeoisie and Colonial Distinction in the Belgian Congo
How and why did the Congolese elite turn from loyal intermediaries into opponents of the colonial state? This book seeks to enrich our understanding of the political and cultural processes culminating in the tumultuous decolonization of the Belgian Congo. Focusing on the making of an African bourgeoisie, the book illuminates the so-called évolués’ social worlds, cultural self-representations, daily life and political struggles. https://youtu.be/c…
Age of Fitness: How the Body Came to Symbolize Success and Achievement
The Power of the Sacred: An Alternative to the Narrative of Disenchantment
Disenchantment" is a key term in the self-understanding of modernity. But what exactly does this concept mean? What was its original meaning when Max Weber introduced it? And can the conventional meaning or Max Weber's view really be defended, given the present state of knowledge about the history of religion? This book attempts to divest this concept of its enduring enchantment. The first chapters of the book deal with three empirical discipline…
The Independence of Religious Phenomena: The Work of Ernst Troeltsch as a Template for the Study of Religion
The Theory of Intersubjectivity as a Theory of the Human Being: George Herbert Mead and the German Tradition of Philosophical Anthropology
Pragmatism and Historicism: Mead’s Philosophy of Temporality and the Logic of Historiography
War in Social Thought: Hobbes to the Present
This book provides a sweeping critical history of social theories about war and peace from Thomas Hobbes to the present. It presents both a broad intellectual history and an original argument as it traces the development of thinking about war over more than 350 years—from the premodern era to the period of German idealism and the Scottish and French enlightenments, and then from the birth of sociology in the nineteenth century through the twentie…
Secularization and the World Religions
Social Theory: Twenty Introductory Lectures
Social theory is the theoretical core of the social sciences, clearly distinguishable from political theory and cultural analysis. This book offers a unique overview of the development of social theory from the end of the Second World War in 1945 to the present day. Spanning the literature in English, French and German, it provides an excellent background to the most important social theorists and theories in contemporary sociological thought, wi…
Secularization and the World Religions
The Cultural Values of Europe
Antisecularism - Jürgen Habermas, Zwischen Naturalismus und Religion (Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, 2005)
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
The Power of the Sacred: An Alternative to the Narrative of Disenchantment
Disenchantment" is a key term in the self-understanding of modernity. But what exactly does this concept mean? What was its original meaning when Max Weber introduced it? And can the conventional meaning or Max Weber's view really be defended, given the present state of knowledge about the history of religion? This book attempts to divest this concept of its enduring enchantment. The first chapters of the book deal with three empirical discipline…
The Cultural Values of Europe
Antisecularism - Jürgen Habermas, Zwischen Naturalismus und Religion (Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, 2005)
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Social Theory: Twenty Introductory Lectures
Social theory is the theoretical core of the social sciences, clearly distinguishable from political theory and cultural analysis. This book offers a unique overview of the development of social theory from the end of the Second World War in 1945 to the present day. Spanning the literature in English, French and German, it provides an excellent background to the most important social theorists and theories in contemporary sociological thought, wi…
Secularization and the World Religions
Secularization and the World Religions
War in Social Thought: Hobbes to the Present
This book provides a sweeping critical history of social theories about war and peace from Thomas Hobbes to the present. It presents both a broad intellectual history and an original argument as it traces the development of thinking about war over more than 350 years—from the premodern era to the period of German idealism and the Scottish and French enlightenments, and then from the birth of sociology in the nineteenth century through the twentie…
The Theory of Intersubjectivity as a Theory of the Human Being: George Herbert Mead and the German Tradition of Philosophical Anthropology
Pragmatism and Historicism: Mead’s Philosophy of Temporality and the Logic of Historiography
The Independence of Religious Phenomena: The Work of Ernst Troeltsch as a Template for the Study of Religion
History of Religion as Critique of Religion?: David Hume and the Consequences
The Scottish eighteenth-century philosopher and historian David Hume can be considered a pioneer of the “natural history of religion” in the sense of a universal history of religion that is not based on theological presuppositions. This chapter offers a characterization of his methodological achievements and a reevaluation of his empirical claims concerning monotheism, polytheism, religion and tolerance. It also interprets the German reception of…
The Sacred and Power: Collective Self-Sacralization and Ways of Overcoming It
This chapter presents the outlines of an alternative to Max Weber’s narrative of disenchantment. It does so first by setting out a theory of the dynamics of sacralization in summary form. Second, this theory is applied to the history of the fusions of this dynamic and the dynamics of power formation and the history of the tensions between the two. The guiding thread for this alternative history is the topic of collective self-sacralization and th…
Fields of Tension: A New Interpretation of Max Weber’s “Intermediate Reflection”
Max Weber’s “Intermediate Reflection,” also known under the title “Religious Rejections of the World and Their Directions,” is usually interpreted as the classic text for a theory of the differentiation of value spheres. As such it has become part of the sociological canon. The new and very detailed interpretation presented in this chapter demonstrates that this view is problematic both with regard to Weber’s own intentions and in itself. An alte…
Multiple Forms of Ideal Formation or Process of Disenchantment?: Attempts at Synthesis by Ernst Troeltsch and Max Weber
More than any other authors around 1900, Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch developed a synthesis of the history, psychology, and sociology of religion. While in the conventional view the two thinkers were rather similar, this chapter contrasts them. I characterize Troeltsch’s views as a study of history that is open to ever new sacralizations. Weber’s notion of a world-historical process of disenchantment, meanwhile, I interpret and criticize as base…
Transcendence as Reflexive Sacredness: The “Axial Age” as a Turning Point in Religious History
This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the debate on the so-called Axial Age. It presents the major contributors from Karl Jaspers on, but also the predecessors in the 18th and 19th centuries. , It explores concepts such as the age of transcendence that have been used to characterize the fundamental innovation of that age. It particularly emphasizes the emergence of moral universalism in that period. The chapter also attempts to bring …
Religious Experience and the Theory of Signs
The foundation of the psychology of religion in the work of William James and others is a major methodological breakthrough in the empirical study of religion. This psychology of religion focuses on experience, offering an alternative to the emphasis on religious doctrines or institutions. This chapter first presents a reconstruction of William James’s relevant writings. It then compares them to the theological writings of Friedrich Schleiermache…
Ritual and the Sacred: On the Anthropology of Ideal Formation
Émile Durkheim’s sociology of religion is presented in this chapter not as a functionalist analysis, but as an understanding of religion that sees it as anchored in collective corporeal practices. These practices and the intense experiences to which they give rise lead to the attribution of sacredness to times, places, persons, and ideas and make ideals possible. This Durkheimian idea has a rich prehistory which is reconstructed here with a speci…
The Lumumba Generation: African Bourgeoisie and Colonial Distinction in the Belgian Congo
How and why did the Congolese elite turn from loyal intermediaries into opponents of the colonial state? This book seeks to enrich our understanding of the political and cultural processes culminating in the tumultuous decolonization of the Belgian Congo. Focusing on the making of an African bourgeoisie, the book illuminates the so-called évolués’ social worlds, cultural self-representations, daily life and political struggles. https://youtu.be/c…
Age of Fitness: How the Body Came to Symbolize Success and Achievement
The Power of the Sacred: An Alternative to the Narrative of Disenchantment
Disenchantment" is a key term in the self-understanding of modernity. But what exactly does this concept mean? What was its original meaning when Max Weber introduced it? And can the conventional meaning or Max Weber's view really be defended, given the present state of knowledge about the history of religion? This book attempts to divest this concept of its enduring enchantment. The first chapters of the book deal with three empirical discipline…
Foundations of Global Communication: A Conceptual Handbook
This book provides a wide-ranging theoretical and empirical overview of the disparate achievements and shortcomings of global communication. This exceptionally ambitious and systematic project takes a critical perspective on the globalization of communication. Uniquely, it sets media globalization alongside a plethora of other globalized forms of communication, ranging from the individual to groups, civil society groupings, commercial enterprises…
Philosophy (12 works) · Religion and Society Interactions (10 works) · Epistemology (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Political science (6 works) · Psychology (5 works) · History (4 works) · Biblical Studies and Interpretation (3 works) · Religious studies (3 works) · American Constitutional Law and Politics (2 works)