Ce mémoire engage une réflexion sur la plénitude dans la pensée de Charles Taylor, et plus particulièrement dans son maître ouvrage L’âge séculier. L’idée de plénitude y est intimement liée à celles de modernité, de croyance et d’incroyance. C’est que, pour Taylor, comprendre la modernité implique de saisir le changement qui nous a permis de passer d’un contexte dans lequel il était impensable de ne pas croire en Dieu à un contexte dans lequel la croyance n’est qu’une option. Ce changement tourne essentiellement autour d’une modification de notre représentation de la plénitude. Qu’est-ce que la plénitude pour notre auteur ? Elle est la condition à laquelle tend tout homme et implique une réponse, tacite ou pas, à la question du sens de la vie. Mon principal objectif sera de saisir la nature de la plénitude telle que la conçoit Taylor. Je montrerai que la double définition de la plénitude dans L’âge séculier génère une certaine tension entre la plénitude conçue comme un événement unique et comme une aspiration constante vers le sens (qui correspond aussi au bien). Je proposerai une résolution de cette tension à travers une compréhension de la plénitude qui vise à en restituer l’unité fondamentale, l’idée étant de saisir la plénitude comme événement unique et comme aspiration constante au sens, non pas séparément, mais dans leur relation. Ce modèle d’interprétation, fourni par l’idée d’éternité, que l’on retrouve aussi dans L’âge séculier, me conduira à établir une coïncidence entre la poursuite de la plénitude et le désir d’éternité. Tous deux ont le même but fondamental : à travers l’inscription de moments qualitativement privilégiés et uniques, constitutifs de la vie, dans la totalité de cette vie, ils visent à en dévoiler le sens et à lui conférer une certaine pérennité. À plus forte raison, ce que j’entends montrer à travers la coïncidence entre plénitude et éternité, c’est que la quête de plénitude n’engage pas nécessairement la perspective religieuse déployée dans L’âge séculier, mais plutôt une forme de transcendance que l’on pourrait qualifier de « temporelle ». / This M.A. thesis unfolds a reflexion upon the concept of fullness as developed by Charles Taylor, especially in his book A Secular Age, in which the idea of fullness is intrinsically connected with modernity, belief and unbelief. For Taylor, the understanding of modernity implies a grasping of the change that allowed the transition from a context where unbelief in God was considered inconceivable to a context where belief remains only an option. That change consists essentially in a modification of our very representation of fullness. What is fullness for Charles Taylor? It is the condition to which any human being tends towards, and which implies an answer, unspoken or not, to the question of the meaning of life. My main goal will be the understanding of the nature of fullness as conceived by Charles Taylor. I shall show that the twofold definition of fullness in A Secular Age generates a tension between fullness conceived as a unique event, and fullness conceived as a constant aspiration towards meaning (which identifies with goodness). I shall suggest a resolution of this tension through an understanding of fullness which aims to restore its fundamental unity – the idea being to grasp the notion of fullness as a unique event and as the constant aspiration to meaning not separately, but in their relationship with one other. This interpretation model, provided by the idea of eternity, which is also present in A Secular Age, will allow me to establish a coincidence between the pursuit of fullness and the desire of eternity. Both of them share the same fundamental aim: through the inscription of qualitatively privileged and unique moments, constituents of life, in the very totality of this life, they aim to reveal its meaning and to bestow permanence to it. Moreover, I will argue from this coincidence between fullness and eternity that the quest for fullness doesn’t necessarily imply a religious perspective as unfolded in A Secular Age, but can lead rather to a form of transcendence that one can qualify as « temporal ».

Sous l’effet de la mondialisation qui a accéléré le rapprochement des cultures, la notion d’identité a pris de l’importance dans la conscience contemporaine. L’émergence du multiculturalisme et de l’idéal de la reconnaissance est liée à ce phénomène. Elle est fondée sur un rejet de l’identité essentielle jugée comme fictive et assimilationniste, au profit d’une valorisation de l’identité sociale réelle. Cette investigation porte sur les enjeux de l’identité, à savoir, sa formation, les conditions de possibilité de son épanouissement, sa reconnaissance dans l’espace public, et surtout son intégration dans la gestion des affaires de l’État. Ces enjeux soulèvent les passions, jusqu’à constituer dans certains cas des menaces pour la cohésion sociale et l’unité de l’État. À travers une analyse conceptuelle et une discussion des problèmes moraux et politiques touchant l’actualité des sociétés contemporaines, Taylor démontre que l’harmonie sociale et l’épanouissement individuel et collectif passent nécessairement par une gestion harmonieuse de l’identité et de la différence. Quant à Honneth, il développe une théorie de l’intersubjectivité, en soulignant que l’identité des individus ne peut se former et s’épanouir que dans des rapports de reconnaissance. Les deux penseurs se rejoignent sur l’idée qu’au fond de l’exigence de la reconnaissance se trouve l’idéal de justice sociale et d’équité. Au-delà de l’estime mutuelle, le partage équitable des richesses (matérielles ou symboliques), les compromis, les accords ou accommodements raisonnables, deviennent le pilier d’un vivre-ensemble harmonieux. / Under the influence of globalization, which has brought different cultures closer, the notion of identity has taken center stage in contemporary consciousness. The emergence of multiculturalism and the recognition of the ideal are connected to this phenomenon. They are based on the rejection of the essential identity, which is judged as fictitious, for the benefit of a real social one. This research accounts for the stakes in identity: its formation, the conditions of possibility of its self-fulfillment, its recognition in the public area, and especially its integration in the management of the affairs of the state. Such requirements sometimes raise passions and may be considered as threats to social cohesion and the compactness of the state. Through an abstract quest and a discussion of the moral and political problems affecting contemporary societies, Taylor demonstrates that social harmony and individual and collective self-fulfillment is inevitably interwoven with a harmonious management of identity and some difference. As for Honneth, he develops an idea based on intersubjectivation, and underscores the fact that the identity of the individual can formed and allow to blossom in the presence of requirements for the recognition of the ideals of social justice and equity. Beyond mutual respect, the equal distribution of wealth (material or symbolic), compromises, agreements or reasonable settlements, are the pillars of harmonious societies.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Ce mémoire engage une réflexion sur la plénitude dans la pensée de Charles Taylor, et plus particulièrement dans son maître ouvrage L’âge séculier. L’idée de plénitude y est intimement liée à celles de modernité, de croyance et d’incroyance. C’est que, pour Taylor, comprendre la modernité implique de saisir le changement qui nous a permis de passer d’un contexte dans lequel il était impensable de ne pas croire en Dieu à un contexte dans lequel la croyance n’est qu’une option. Ce changement tourne essentiellement autour d’une modification de notre représentation de la plénitude. Qu’est-ce que la plénitude pour notre auteur ? Elle est la condition à laquelle tend tout homme et implique une réponse, tacite ou pas, à la question du sens de la vie. Mon principal objectif sera de saisir la nature de la plénitude telle que la conçoit Taylor. Je montrerai que la double définition de la plénitude dans L’âge séculier génère une certaine tension entre la plénitude conçue comme un événement unique et comme une aspiration constante vers le sens (qui correspond aussi au bien). Je proposerai une résolution de cette tension à travers une compréhension de la plénitude qui vise à en restituer l’unité fondamentale, l’idée étant de saisir la plénitude comme événement unique et comme aspiration constante au sens, non pas séparément, mais dans leur relation. Ce modèle d’interprétation, fourni par l’idée d’éternité, que l’on retrouve aussi dans L’âge séculier, me conduira à établir une coïncidence entre la poursuite de la plénitude et le désir d’éternité. Tous deux ont le même but fondamental : à travers l’inscription de moments qualitativement privilégiés et uniques, constitutifs de la vie, dans la totalité de cette vie, ils visent à en dévoiler le sens et à lui conférer une certaine pérennité. À plus forte raison, ce que j’entends montrer à travers la coïncidence entre plénitude et éternité, c’est que la quête de plénitude n’engage pas nécessairement la perspective religieuse déployée dans L’âge séculier, mais plutôt une forme de transcendance que l’on pourrait qualifier de « temporelle ». / This M.A. thesis unfolds a reflexion upon the concept of fullness as developed by Charles Taylor, especially in his book A Secular Age, in which the idea of fullness is intrinsically connected with modernity, belief and unbelief. For Taylor, the understanding of modernity implies a grasping of the change that allowed the transition from a context where unbelief in God was considered inconceivable to a context where belief remains only an option. That change consists essentially in a modification of our very representation of fullness. What is fullness for Charles Taylor? It is the condition to which any human being tends towards, and which implies an answer, unspoken or not, to the question of the meaning of life. My main goal will be the understanding of the nature of fullness as conceived by Charles Taylor. I shall show that the twofold definition of fullness in A Secular Age generates a tension between fullness conceived as a unique event, and fullness conceived as a constant aspiration towards meaning (which identifies with goodness). I shall suggest a resolution of this tension through an understanding of fullness which aims to restore its fundamental unity – the idea being to grasp the notion of fullness as a unique event and as the constant aspiration to meaning not separately, but in their relationship with one other. This interpretation model, provided by the idea of eternity, which is also present in A Secular Age, will allow me to establish a coincidence between the pursuit of fullness and the desire of eternity. Both of them share the same fundamental aim: through the inscription of qualitatively privileged and unique moments, constituents of life, in the very totality of this life, they aim to reveal its meaning and to bestow permanence to it. Moreover, I will argue from this coincidence between fullness and eternity that the quest for fullness doesn’t necessarily imply a religious perspective as unfolded in A Secular Age, but can lead rather to a form of transcendence that one can qualify as « temporal ».

Peter Carey has been discussed in academia since the 1980s. And since then these discussions revolve around postmodernism, postcolonial studies or, indeed, both at once. So, either Peter Carey has been writing the same old novel for nearly thirty years by now, or there are whole worlds in his writings that have yet to be uncovered. Since I claim the latter is the case, this thesis sets out to chart at least a few areas of these vast forgotten territories, to use a consciously colonial metaphor. The theoretical ‘vehicle’ with which the new areas are entered is agency. Which means that the thesis investigates how individual characters manage to become successful actors, or fail to do so. The thesis first provides an overview of Carey's writing (Chapter 2), then traces three typical 'Carey themes' through his entire oeuvre and shows how they are relevant for agency (Chapter 3), before discussing the concept of agency itself at some length in Chapter 4. Chapters 5, 6 and 7 are close readings of My Life as a Fake, Illywhacker and Tristan Smith and investigate the novels' main characters' development in depth. The appendix contains research that would be relevant for a biographical approach to Carey's works. It explains the climate of Australian literature production in the 1970s in which Carey emerges as an author and that is relevant for his writing up to his latest works Amnesia and a Long Way from Home. It also relates a few biographical notes that are relevant for many of his works.:1. Introduction 4 2. Literary Overview of Carey’s Writing 18 3. Agency in Carey’s Writing: Three ‘Carey Themes’ 29 4. Agency 49 4.1. Important Terminology 49 4.2. Agency: A New Phenomenon? 53 4.3. The Ancient Sources of Agency 62 4.4. The Agency Game: The Sociological Concept of Agency 67 4.5. Agency, Nature, and Metaphysics 76 4.6. The Problem of Normativity 84 4.7. Getting the Moral Framework Back into the Picture 89 4.8. Getting Intrinsic Capacity Back into the Picture 95 4.9. The Whole Picture 100 5. My Life as a Fake 109 5.1. The Story 109 5.2. The Central Conflict: Apollo and Dionysus Caught in a ‘Deathlock’ 112 5.3. My Life as a Fake and the Struggle for Authenticity 125 5.4. Chubb and McCorkle Revisited: Authenticity and the Social Arena 132 5.5. Conclusion 138 6. Illywhacker 141 6.1. Lies and control 148 6.1.1. Book I 149 6.1.2. Book II 156 6.1.3. Book III 164 6.2. Compulsive Visions and Compelled Selves 171 6.2.1. The McGraths: Molly and Jack 185 6.2.2. The Young Compulsive Mistresses 190 6.3. Peter Carey’s Entrapped Dreamers 199 6.4. From the Aircraft Factory to the Museum: Baudrillard in Australia 204 6.4.1. The Three-Tiered Advance of Australia Fair 205 6.4.2. Agency in the Hyperreal Condition 214 6.4.3. Illywhacker and the Western World: Anti-Depressants 217 6.5. Final Remarks on Illywhacker 221 7. Tristan Smith 224 7.1. Tristan as Narrative Voice and as Character inside his Story 228 7.2. Tristan’s Bildung: A Study in two Mirror Phases 231 7.2.1. Initial Conceit 232 7.2.2. The Gaze of the Other 236 7.2.3. The First Mirror Stage 241 7.2.4. Interlude 246 7.2.5. The Voyage 249 7.2.6. The Second Mirror Stage 252 7.3. Tristan’s Subversiveness: “Bodies […] out of Control” 258 7.3.1. Postcolonial Approaches and External Reality 259 7.3.2. Cultural Simulation: Ghostdorps and Ghost Lights 264 7.3.3. Confronting Simulations: Tristan and Peggy 270 7.3.4. Not Escaping the Now: Felicity 275 7.3.5. Jacqui: From Self-Realisation to Escapism and Back to the Now 280 7.4. The Radical’s Conceit: Peter Carey’s Political Activists 287 8. Conclusion 292 9. Bibliography 303 10. Appendix 314 10.1. Publishing Carey: The Emergence of an Author 314 10.2. Peter Carey and the New Nationalism 320 10.3. Biographical Notes on Peter Carey’s Writing 330

This essay studies the implicit and explicit perspectives of Bruce Lincoln, Jürgen Habermas, Talal Asad, Saba Mahmood, Charles Taylor, José Casanova and their approach to secularism as a phenomenon. This is done by categorizing them into three categories. The categories,enlightenment-centered theorists, critical theorists and implicit-theological theorists, all have explicit accounts and implicit forms of reasoning that shape and contextualize their respective approach. The Enlightenment-centered theorists tend to regard secularism as a neutral and peace-keeping statecraft. This approach implicitly contains the idea of a clear division between secular and religious. This implicit form of reasoning I argue is problematically non-reflexive to the theorist’s own standpoint and risks becoming a form of secular ideology. The theorists categorized as critical theorists view secularism more as a type of discourse where what is seen as religious and the secular is inherently fluid. This is then analyzed by them as a special strategy for Western sovereignty. The perspective of the implicit-theological theorists is similar both to the Enlightenment-centered and the criticaltheorists' perspective in that secularism is primarily peace-keeping and that the categories are often fluid. I show that their approach contains theological assumptions that religion responds to a realm which challenges the immanent world. In the last chapter of the essay, I give a normative evaluation of the three approaches to secularism where I argue that while the enlightenment-centered theorists have useful explanatory models, the critical and to a lesser extent implicit-theological approach to secularism are more fruitful for religious studies. They allow for more flexibility in studying the relationship between secular and religious groups as they do not determine the categories in advance. The essay also contains a concluding discussion on the type of problems for philosophy of science and religious studies that arise when secularism and what is seen as the secular is deconstructed.

This thesis examines Augustine and Friedrich Hayek’s notion of subjectivity in the context of cultural translation theory, following Talal Asad. Previous researchers have related Hayek to political theology and economic theology by observing the notion of market’s divinizing implications and tendencies, often through generalized methods of analysis and allegorical comparison. Research treating neoliberal subjectivity seldom considers it building on Christian theological notions. Given the lack of research on the given topic, more specific the relationship between theological and neoliberal understandings of subjectivity, it is pertinent to examine neoliberal subjectivity as expressed by Hayek, by comparing to saint Augustine. By a close reading of one of western societies most important theologians, Augustine, and comparing to Hayek’s economic vision of society, this study examines how Augustine and Hayek interact by using cultural translation as a methodological framework. Augustine’s notion of God, and Hayek’s notion of the market, is analyzed as explicitly proposing, or implicitly presupposing, notions of subjectivity. Translatability and untranslatability are used as methodological concepts for discussing where Augustine and Hayek’s notions overlap and where they differ. This study demonstrates that Hayek’s understanding of subjectivity in relation to the market has comparable aspects with Augustine’s understanding of human subjectivity in relation to God. Though some aspects where the authors differ, such as the understanding of knowledge, might be described as untranslatable. Use of cultural translation theory, allows for important nuances in the relationship between theology and economic understandings of subjectivity to transpire in analysis.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the relationship between evangelicalism and modernity with the Swedish holiness preacher Emil Gustafson (1862–1900) as a case. This is achieved by comparing Gustafson’s spirituality with Charles Taylor’s characterization of modernity. The investigation identifies five central themes in Gustafson’s spirituality: conversion, calling, suffering, sanctification, and spiritual experience. With regard to these themes paral-lels with modernity are noted. For example, the analysis shows that modern individualism influenced Gustafson’s view of conversion, and that instrumental rationality informed his evaluations of his own work as a preacher. But there are also instances where he distanced himself from modernity. He did not embrace a modern optimistic anthropology, or the view of suffering as purely negative. It is concluded that Gustafson is neither anti-modern, nor identical to Taylor’s depiction of modernity. He represents one kind of modernity. One that is theocentric rather than anthropo-centric. In order to uphold this theocentric character Gustafson’s opposition to the basic struc-ture of modernity had to be grounded in social practices. For instance, his negative anthropol-ogy was grounded in the revival-meeting where outsiders were called to repent and rely on God rather than themselves. Based on the results from this study it is suggested that evangelicalism should be inter-preted as neither in conflict with modernity, nor in continuity with it, but rather as a kind of modernity. There are multiple modernities, and evangelicalism is one of them.

Taking Saba Mahmood's question 'Can secularism be other-wise?' (2010) as the starting point for a critical-historical investigation of the 'secular body' (Asad 2003; Hirschkind 2011), my thesis develops in two stages. In the first, I argue that current works of secular theory - particularly A Secular Age (Taylor 2007) - tend to rely on an excessively rationalistic conception of Enlightenment thought for the construction of their central conceptual categories (e.g. the 'immanent frame', 'buffered self', or 'modern exclusive humanism'), thus reinforcing a double-binary linking rationality to Euro-American secularity, and emotion to subaltern 'religion'. Against Taylor and others, I emphasise the contradictory, 'assembled' nature of Enlightenment discourse, and point to alternative, more body-centred strands of thought in key figures of the seventeenth-eighteenth-century French Enlightenment, such as Descartes, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot, Helvétius, and Holbach. Against common perceptions, and drawing on a range of philosophical works, institutional reports, and stage plays in French and in translation, I suggest these figures in some ways reinstated emotion and the body against the rationalistic tendencies of the past. Insofar as 'the secular' was shaped by the Enlightenment, it emerged out of a conscious project of nationalist cultivation, based fundamentally on manipulating the body and emotions. In the second stage, I consider the way Orientalist representations of non-Western religions meshed with prevalent theories of political manipulation to generate an affective system of anti-Catholic propaganda geared towards the national good. Though existing critiques of Taylor tend to focus on the importance of religious (i.e. Christian) constructions of Oriental religions for the genealogy of secularity (e.g. Mahmood 2010), I suggest a distinctively secular form of Orientalism emerged in the eighteenth century, in which anti-religion, racism, and nationalism merged into a powerful weapon of republican discourse, congruent with ambient theories of emotion. The aesthetic manipulation of racist and Orientalist tropes in Montesquieu's Lettres Persanes (1721) and Voltaire's Le Fanatisme (1741), for example, can be read as a practical response to existing theory on the power of images to regulate people's passions in the national interest.

In modern times of globalisation, most countries no longer consist of a homogeneous population. People from different backgrounds, with different stories, religion and culture live together in the same community. Unfortunately, this creates challenges and a modern state needs to have a plan for integration so that all these groups and individuals may live together peacefully, which is important in aspects of universal human rights and human dignity, but also for the function of a society. In this Master's thesis in Human Rights, questions about integration are discussed in a European context through four ideal-typical integration policy options from a model by Karin Borevi; together with perspectives from Seyla Benhabib, Abdelmalek Sayad and Charles Taylor. The four ideal-typical options for integration that are used in this thesis are: 1: Assimilaion to an ethnic community 2: Politics for ethnic exclusion 3: Assimilation to a civil community 4: Multicultural politics. Integration in Sweden, Great Britain and France during the 90's are used as illustrative examples of integration in order to be able to discuss the ideal-typical policy options in relation to real examples for demonstrating which political ideas and values that are built into different models of integration. In the end a normative discussion results in a solution of which values that should be prioritised and which strategy that is the best to accomplish these values. I conclude amongst other things that different forms of integration value culture, groups or individuals differently and that many different types of strategies and politics can be put into the same ideal-typical option for integration. People tend to treat cultures as unchangeable and well-defined units, even though they in reality seem to be of a changeable nature. The modern state should in my opinion work more with the principles around which type of society that would be the best for all its citizens and not so much how we should preserve what cannot be preserved in the first place, like cultures. We should create societies where cultures can mix and change. The global world is here to stay and so is the heterogeneous society, the state should focus on creating a society built on this fact, where society and people as individuals may grow.