La teoria che non c’era. Secolarizzazione, religione e campi intellettuali

This essay proposes a ‘heretical’ reading of the secularization debate from the postwar period to the early 2000s. The proposed thesis depends on two theoretical assump- tions: the inherent pluralism of intellectual fields as spaces of positioning, which makes it difficult to identify trends and hegemonies; and the difference between paradigms, theories and doxa, understood as interpretive frames that differ in systematization and precision. Far from being a hegemonic theory, the so-called ‘theory of secularization as religion’s decline’ has not only always faced attacks from skeptics and antagonists, but was not codified as a true ‘theory’ until a competing scientific approach – application of rational choice theory to the religious field in the early 1980s – forced its proponents to systematize their proposals.