Theory and Theology: The Axial Age, Realized Eschatology and the Eclipse of Reason in the Twenty-first Century
Forthcoming in Current Perspectives in Social Theory: Insecurity and Eclipse of Reason, Vol.42 (2025)
In this article, I undertake a critical analysis of theological modes of thought that mediate contemporary forms of subjectivity. I argue that prevailing interpretive frameworks, such as the Axial Age thesis, the concept of transcendence, and the notion of the post-secular society, tend to obscure the relation between subjectivity and structural as well as historical constellations. Grounded in critical ontology, my analysis treats theological categories as representations that illuminate transformations in the normative structures of collective life in the historical present. As a paradigmatic case, I draw on prosperity theology (particularly its notion of realized eschatology) to demonstrate structural relations between theological formations and the reproduction of subjectivity in late modernity. By reconstructing theology as a representation, I aim to contribute to critical theory and the sociology of religion. The goal is to advance a critical reading of theology as an alternative framework for engaging contemporary religious phenomena, and to interrogate how religious discourse sustains the structural conditions underlying the ongoing eclipse of reason.
A magazine rack at a supermarket.
“Rise of the Resistance” and the Demise of Social Being: The Autolysis of Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century
Fast Capitalism Vol. 21 No. 1 (2024)
Structural transformations in the 21st century necessitate radical rethinking of the category of subject that underlie the notions of autonomy, agency and individuality. This paper depicts an onto-genetic transformation of the subject— its autolysis—in the historical present by building on representations and the mediation of categories of social life. The paper first delineates the notion of representation as a central element of critical ontology as a form of social theory by building on Hegel and Durkheim. It then draws on a recent product from the culture industry, namely The Disneyland theme-park ride called “Rise of the Resistance,” which involves a representation that has a significant illustrative value for apprehending contemporary form of subjectivity, and asserts that critical ontology that builds on representations points to onto-genetic transformation of subject, its autolysis, in the historical present.
Stormtroopers at Rise of Resistance ride, Disneyland, Anaheim, CA.
Allegory, Discourse, and Truth: The Ontological Grounding of Social Being
In Planetary Sociology: Beyond the Entanglement of Identity and Social Structure (Current Perspectives in Social Theory, Vol. 40) (2023)
Here I offer a critique of the affirmative forms of thought that attempt to ground the ontology of social being through subjective-idealist terms. Some recent examples came in the form of notion of truth grounded in subjects’ experience and in rationality of language and discourse. First I demonstrate the perilous implications of such an approach for social theory tasked with ontology and for the conception of truth necessary for its task. I then scrutinize the paradigm of society that stems from this subjective-idealist notion of truth and social ontology that adopts discourse, language, and literary metaphors to comprehend social being. As an alternative, in the final part I delineate the relation of ontology, normativity, and mediation, as well as the notion of critique necessary for social theory tasked with ontology.
Allegory: Time protects Truth and Wisdom from Envy, Hypocrisy and Lie by Nicolaas Verkolje, c 1725 – c 1735. (Licensed under CC0 1.0)
Lukács and the Problem of Knowledge: Critical Ontology as Social Theory
In Georg Lukács and the Possibility of Critical Social Ontology. Edited by Michael J. Thompson. Leiden ; Boston : Brill (2020)
Various tracks of interdisciplinary movements in social and cultural theory, such as poststructuralism, postmodernism, and post-colonialism not only question the legitimacy of a form of social theory with normative ends except as relative to particular cultures, values and subjectivities, but they also challenge the very relation of knowledge and truth by persistently reiterating the inherent relation of these to power and domination. These interrelated critiques express a fundamental problem of modern social theory, namely the fact that its normative foundations have never successfully been established. The crucial first step in establishing these foundations is a clarification of the relation between knowledge and truth. In Lukács’ work on ontology we find a radically different conception of the two. It is the premise of my argument here that such critical ontological analysis can serve as the foundations of social theory capable of over coming two interrelated problems that have come to constitute the central challenge for a normative grounding of social theory, namely the subject–object antinomy as it has come to define the epistemological pillars of scientific knowledge in social theory, and, second, the separation of theory and practice as it pertains to the question of freedom.
Library of Celsus, Ephesus
History, Critique, and Progress: Amy Allen’s “End of Progress” and the Normative Grounding of Critical Theory
Current Perspectives in Social Theory, Vol. 36 (2019)
Allen’s critique of current Frankfurt School theory presents the joint methods of “problematizing genealogy” and “metanormative contextualism” as alternative for the normative grounding of critical theory. Through a close reading of Allen’s critique, I investigate whether Allen’s identification of philosophy of history is an accurate diagnosis of the problems of the normative grounding of current Frankfurt School theory, whether Allen’s distinction between metanormative and normative levels is tenable for critical theory, and whether Allen’s methodology constitutes a viable alternative for the normative grounding of critical theory. Expanding on Allen’s reiteration of the mediated nature of categories, I suggest scrutinizing the grounding strategies of current Frankfurt School theory to expand beyond their genealogy in Enlightenment thought, and address the question of what made the affirmative form of thought underlying current Frankfurt School theory a historical possibility.
American Progress by John Gast (1872). (Public Domain).
Toward a Critical Ontology of the Social: Hegel, Lukács, and the Challenge of Mediation
Current Perspectives in Social Theory, Vol. 33 (2015)
Contemporary moment of capitalist modernity as a form of social objectivity presents fundamental challenges for the possibility of social theory with normative ends. After providing a brief account of the positivist permeation of social theory and its implications for the relationship between theory, critique, and practice, I offer a close reading of Lukács’ reconstruction of Hegel to facilitate the foundations of critical ontology as a form of social theory. The goal is to recognize processes of domination and conditions of unfreedom not only within the structured economic inequalities of globalizing capital but also within and through the forms of mediation that are at work in the present.
Truth, Fact and Value: Recovering Normative Foundations for Sociology
Society, volume 50 (2013)
Can sociology have normative presuppositions? Is the purpose of sociology to study society as it is or how it ought to be? Can we task sociology with serving moral and ethical ends?