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Transcendental Sociology? A Critique of John Milbank's Theology and Social Theory Beyond Secular Reason1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Richard H. Roberts
Affiliation:
Department of DivinityUniversity ofSt Andrews St Mary's CollegeSt Andrews KYI 6 9JU

Abstract

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Type
Article Review
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1993

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References

2 This paper was presented with Dr Milbank and Professor J. W. Beckfoid at the concluding plenary meeting of the British Sociology Association Sociology of Religion Group, 31 March 1993.

3 Indeed, in the public discussion at Bristol, Dr Milbank asserted that there was no such thing as a ‘social fact’ or indeed a specific field of competence for sociology; there was nothing outside or beyond I'histoire lotah.

4 Blumenberg, Hans, The Legitimacy of the Modern Age, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, [1966] 1983Google Scholar.

5 In looking for the elective affinities of Theology and Social Theory it is perhaps in Francis Fnkuyama's proclamation of the final triumph of the market and capitalism over Marxist socialism and the extinction of the conflict of metanarratives in the ‘end of history’ that clues can be found that assist the contextualisalion and interpretation of Dr Milbank's transcendentalism.

6 For a comparative examination of such ‘archaeologies‘’, see Roberts, R. H. and Good, J. M. M. (eds), The Recovery of Rhetoric: Persuasive Discourse and Disciplinarity in the Human Sciences, London: Duckworth; Charlottesville VA: University Press of Virginia, 1993Google Scholar.