Modernity’s Wager: Authority, the Self and Transcendence

By Adam B. Seligman

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 7/14/2003
ISBN-13: 9780691116365

“In Modernity’s Wager, Seligman broaches the relationship of selfhood to authority directly. The result is a deeply thoughtful book, which makes a powerful and distinctive contribution to contemporary social philosophy. Seligman’s book is well written and well organized, displaying a formidable erudition in the history of philosophy and social thought. It is worth reading simply for the perceptive and arresting overview which it contains of thought on authority and morality over the past several centuries in relation to far older Jewish, Christian and classical traditions.”—John Gray, London School of Economics

“Writing on the borderlands of sociology and theology, Seligman has provided an engaging and original account of the problem of modernity. He has identified several factors and forces that are irreducible in the contemporary search for meaning and order.”—Jonathan B. Imber, Wellesley College, Editor-in-Chief of Society.