The unthought of modernity : magical thinking in science, philosophy, and theology

Abstract

The modernity of the West has generally tended to construct the relation between magic and religion according to a developmentalist schema, chiefly as a movement from the primitive to the modern, from superstition to enlightenment. However, recent developments in the study of religion, intellectual history, critical theory, as well as theology demonstrate that such a dualism might be unsustainable. The persistence of the magical into the discourses of modernity (e.g., science, philosophy, and theology) undermines any framing narrative of this sort. In this essay, which serves as an introduction to a special section in Religion & Theology on magic, science, philosophy, and theology, I put forward both a descriptive and constructive account as to why the construct of “magic,” in the words of Randall Styers, may be considered “the unthought of modernity.”