Berkley Center

In this German-language article Casanova asks "Which Religion(s) Do People Need?" and poses "Theories of Religious Change in the Global Age of Contingency." The article is written in reply to Hans Joas's book Braucht der Mensch Religion? (Do We Need Religion?) and puts forth Casanova's assertion that in the modern context religion has become indubitably a social good. Casanova concludes that the modern Western secular, post-metaphysical worldview has not been purged of numinosity but is in fact compatible with the maintenance of "religious" sentiment. This book chapter was published in Handlung und Erfahrung: Das Erbe von Historismus und Pragmatismus und die Zukunft der Sozialtheorie (2011, eds. Bettina Hollstein, Matthias Jung, and Wolfgang Knöbl).