Here I will argue that Thomas Pfau’s presentation of modernity in Minding the Modern fails to incorporate both the sociopolitical…
Thomas Pfau and the emergence of the modern individual
Book blog
Scholars from varying disciplines engage in critical discussions of recent books. Additionally, scholars introduce their books with an original essay or, occasionally, an original essay reviews an important new book, connecting it to other threads of conversation in the academy and beyond.
You can read our very first book forum, on Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age and the continued discussion around Varieties of Secularism in a Secular Age here.
Playing God
In his new book Minding the Modern, Thomas Pfau presents a searching, and often scathing, indictment of the modern regime…
Minding hermeneutics and history
Minding the Modern is unusual in several respects. It is organized historically but anti-historicist, methodologically self-aware yet critical of “method,”…
Modernity as a hermeneutic problem
I should thank the organizers at The Immanent Frame for hosting a forum on Minding the Modern and all respondents…
The Fantastic Mr. Hobbes
Some readers of Minding the Modern have been surprised to find my account so firmly critical of Thomas Hobbes on will…
Christian human rights—An introduction
Christmas Day, 1942. The outcome of World War II was undecided, but the pope had something new to say. A…
Not Church history?
When Samuel Moyn talks about Church history, it is usually not meant as a compliment. He has shaken up the…
All churches have heretics: On Catholicism, human rights, and the advantages of history for life
In the years since Samuel Moyn’s essay on Jacques Maritain, personalism, and human rights appeared, he has overseen a transformation…
On the recognition of human rights
Samuel Moyn's essay, "Personalism, Community, and the Origins of Human Rights," makes an important contribution to our understanding of the…
From personalism to liberalism?
In his paper “Personalism, Community and the Origins of Human Rights,” Samuel Moyn argues that a relatively understudied current of…