1st Edition
Recognition and Religion Contemporary and Historical Perspectives
This book focuses on recognition and its relation to religion and theology, in both systematic and historical dimensions. While existing research literature on recognition and contemporary recognition theory has been gradually growing since the early 1990s, certain gaps remain in the field covered so far. One of these is the multifaceted interaction between the phenomena of recognition and religion.
Since recognition applies to persons, institutions, and normative entities like systems of beliefs, it also provides a very useful analytic and interpretative tool for studying religion. Divided into five sections, with chapters written by established scholars in their respective fields, the book explores the roots, history, and limits of recognition theory in the context of religious belief. Exploring early Christian and medieval sources on recognition and religion, it also offers contemporary applications of this underexplored combination.
This is a timely book, as debates over religious identities, problematic forms of extremism and societal issues related with multiculturalism continue to dominate the media and politics. It will, therefore, be of great interest to scholars of recognition studies as well as religious studies, theology, philosophy, and religious and intellectual history.
Introduction
Maijastina Kahlos, Heikki J. Koskinen and Ritva Palmén
Section I: Recognition: Novel Articulations
1 The Recognition of Religion in Public Spaces
Simon Thompson
2 Mediated Recognition: Suggestions towards an Articulation
Heikki J. Koskinen
3 Causes for Lack of Recognition: From the Secular to the Non-Secular
Heikki Ikäheimo
Section II: Historical Struggles for Recognition
4 Early Christians and the Transformation of Recognition
Hartmut Leppin
5 Early Christians on Philosophy: A Religion Seeking Recognition in Greco-Roman Culture
Niko Huttunen
6 Recognition through Persuasion: An Aspect of Late Antique Religious Controversy
Maria del Mar Marcos Sánchez
7 Recognizing the Road: Graeco-Roman Appeals for Religious Diversity in the Late Roman Empire
Maijastina Kahlos
Section III: Medieval and Early Modern Intersections
8 Shame, Self-Evaluation and Recognition in the Middle Ages
Ritva Palmén
9 Aquinas on Recognition
Andrea Aldo Robiglio
10 Theological and Legal Arguments for the Non-Recognition and Recognition of the Rights of Infidels in Medieval Sources
Virpi Mäkinen
11 Recognition and Masculinity: Luther on the Song of Songs
Risto Saarinen
Section IV: Roots of Recognition Theory
12 Spinoza, Religion and Recognition
Ericka Tucker
13 Hegel’s Actualist Metaphysics as a Framework for Understanding His Recognition-Theoretic Account of Christianity
Paul Redding
Section V: Limits of Recognition
14 On the Natural Basis and Ecological Limits of Recognition
Arto Laitinen and Teea Kortetmäki
15 Justice, Friendship and Recognition: Reflections on Ancient and Late Ancient Debates
Miira Tuominen
Biography
Maijastina Kahlos is a senior researcher at the University of Helsinki, Finland.
Heikki J. Koskinen is a senior researcher at the University of Helsinki, Finland.
Ritva Palmén is a postdoctoral researcher at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki, Finland.
