Disenchanted world: the ethos post-religious of contemporary man in the light of the Marcel Gauchet’s thought

Abstract

This article analyzes the meaning of the expression "disenchantment of the world" in the French philosopher Marcel Gauchet’s thought. In order to do so, it seeks to show that, through the thesis of an exit of religion, Gauchet presents the historical development of religion in three distinct stages but successive and interrelated each other, that is to say: The religion of the past as the configurator of the original experience of heteronomy in its most absolute form of the so-called primitive societies or without writing;  The historic moment of exit from religion as an event of absolute transition from heteronomous hegemony to autonomy hegemony; and, , finally, the current stage as a "post-religion" moment, in which a metamorphosis of religion is seen in personal belief and, thus, to a transformation of the figure of the Beyond or suprasensible, which entails, in turn, different conceptions and figures of transcendence in the contemporary world. In traversing the Gauchetian thought in its historical-analytical arc, the article shows how the French thinker reflects on the conditions of possibility of the religious and religiosity in the present times.