The contemporary philosopher Charles Taylor has characterized modernity as “that historically unprecedented amalgam of new practices and institutional forms (science, technology, industrial production, urbanization); of new ways of living (individualism, secularization, instrumental rationality); and of new forms of malaise (alienation, meaninglessness, a sense of impending social dissolution).” He also suggests that “the number one problem of modern social science is modernity itself.” In recent years, the meaning of the modern has come to be at the heart of many of the deepest and most divisive debates within ethics, politics, the arts, and religion. While continuing to recognize the great achievements of modernity, especially the rise of the natural sciences and liberal political regimes with their rejection of oppressive social and political structures, many have come to believe that the modern has also brought with it human problems of new and frightening sorts: cultural and moral fragmentation, anomie in personal lives, crimes against humanity of unprecedented scale and ferocity, and the domination of human life by new technologies that seem impossible for us to control. Pope John Paul II was moved by this constellation of phenomena to speak of certain features of late modern culture as a Culture of Death.
Yet in devoting our seventh annual fall conference to the significance of modernity, we at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture are above all interested in exploring then Cardinal Ratzinger’s, now Pope Benedict XVI’s, claim that in order to resolve the dilemma of modernity, we have to reconsider the starting point of the modern path to freedom. For as Benedict XVI once wrote: “what clearly stands behind the modern era’s demand for freedom is the promise: You will be like God….The implicit goal of all modern freedom is, in the end, to be like a god, dependent of nothing and nobody, with one’s freedom not restricted by anyone else’s….Being completely free, without the competition of any other freedom, without any “from” or “for”—behind that stands, not an image of God, but the image of an idol” (Truth and Tolerance). In this perspective modernity might be regarded as a kind of “yearning for the infinite,” a shadow image of the Christian quest for God.
Our aim, then, with “Modernity: Yearning for the Infinite,” is to bring together a large number of respected scholars representing all the main academic fields, from Catholic, non-Catholic, and secular institutions, to provide spirited discussion of the underlying causes of the intellectual epoch we have come to call modernity; of the relationship between the main theses of modernity and the Magisterium of the Church in the last century; and the impact of modernity upon work in philosophy, theology, law, literature, the arts, as well as other fields of intellectual inquiry and endeavor.
We welcome the submission of abstracts drawing on a wide range of moral and religious perspectives and academic specialties. Special consideration will be given to submissions of ideas for panel discussions that would bring together several people to discuss a focused theme. Possible themes to be explored are:
One-page abstracts for individual papers should include name, affiliation, address, and e-mail address (if available). Session presentations will be limited to twenty minutes for individuals, one hour for panels.
Deadline for submissions was July 15, 2006.
Download the Call for Papers as a PDF.
