Neera Chandhoke, Rethinking Pluralism, Secularism and Tolerance: Anxieties of Coexistence

Carnap’s Tolerance, Language Change and Logical Pluralism

In this paper, I distinguish different kinds of pluralism about logical consequence. In particular, I distinguish the pluralism about logic arising from Carnap’s Principle of Tolerance from a pluralism which maintains that there are different, equally “good” logical consequence relations on the one language. I will argue that this second form of pluralism does more justice to the contemporary s...

Beyond Tolerance: Globalization, Freedom, and Religious Pluralism

If “Globalization” is to mean something other than imposing a single set of uniform, unexamined, and unchallengeable ideas on the entire human race, we must find ways to incorporate concepts of difference, freedom, and religious pluralism. If we are to build a truly human and humane global community, we must rethink (i) human nature (especially as regards the age-old search for spiritual values...

Rethinking the Interplay of Feminism and Secularism in a Neo-secular Age

The need to re-examine established ways of thinking about secularism and its relationship to feminism has arisen in the context of the confluence of a number of developments including: the increasing dominance of the ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis; the expansion of postmodern critiques of Enlightenment rationality to encompass questions of religion; and sustained critiques of the ‘secularizati...

Arias, anxieties and epidemics.

The Circulation of Secularism

Inquiring into the causes behind the spread of secularism in the modern world, this paper proposes that the concept has proliferated owing to its peculiar property as culture: It is simultaneously a piece of culture and also a reflection upon culture. In its latter capacity, it imagines a world in which alternative religious belief systems divide people. It spreads as a piece of culture because...