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This book offers comparative ontologies of both Islam and liberalism as discourses more broadly construed.
The author argues that, despite recent efforts to speak of overlapping consensuses and discursive congruence, the fundamental categories that constitute "Islam" and "Liberalism" remain very different, and that these differences should be taken seriously. Thus far, no recent scholarly works have explicitly or meticulously broken down where these differences lie. The author rigorously explores questions related to rights, moral epistemologies, the role of religion in the public sphere, and more general approaches to legal discourse, via primary and canonical sources constitutive of both Islam and liberalism. He then goes on to articulate why communitarian modes of thought are better suited for engaging with Islam and contemporary socio-political modes of organization than liberalism is.
This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of politics and international relations, Islam, liberalism, and communitarianism.
List of contents
1. Introduction 2. Setting the Table: Liberalism and its Enlightenment Origins 3. 'Liberalisms': Exploring the Deep Familial Relationship Between Comprehensive Liberalism and Political Liberalism 4. 'Islams': Rethinking the Question 'What is Islam?' Rearticulated as a Coherent Discursive Tradition Despite the Multiplicity of Local Traditions 5. Comparing the Liberal and Islamic Approaches to Moral Epistemology and Human Rights 6. Comparing the Liberal and Islamic Approaches to the Role of Religion in the Public Sphere 7. Comparing the Liberal and Islamic Approaches to Law 8. A Communitarian Alternative for Modern Islamic Societies? 9. Conclusion
About the author
Joseph J. Kaminski is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of International Relations at the International University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Current research interests include: Religion and Politics, Comparative Political Theory, and New Approaches to Islamic Public Reason. He is the author of
The Contemporary Islamic Governed State: A Reconceptualization (2017).
Summary
This book offers comparative ontologies of both Islam and liberalism as discourses more broadly construed.
