Charles Taylor explains a broader understanding of faith as well as of reason in his philosophical anthropology. In leading one’s own life, faith contains more than having certain beliefs, and reason grasps more than having scientific methods. Taylor answers questions regarding the relation of his great narrative to the approaches of M. Heidegger, M. Merleau-Ponty, M. Foucault, K. Jaspers, and S. Eisenstadt (axial cultures and multiple modernities). Insofar as the secularization of Christianity involves ironic reversals, all main (...) directions in Western modernity (forms of religion, secular humanism, and anti-humanism) are faced with dilemmas. Instead of looking for scapegoats in the others, all directions are called upon to cooperate. The open questionability of the Human condition has no last answer. (shrink)

Public and intellectual debates have long struggled with the concept of values and the difficulties of defining them. With _The Genesis of Values,_ renowned theorist Hans Joas explores the nature of these difficulties in relation to some of the leading figures of twentieth-century philosophy and social theory: Friedrich Nietzsche, William James, Max Scheler, John Dewey, Georg Simmel, Charles Taylor, and Jürgen Habermas. Joas traces how these thinkers came to terms with the idea of values, and then extends beyond (...) them with his own comprehensive theory. Values, Joas suggests, arise in experiences in self-formation and self-transcendence. Only by appreciating the creative nature of human action can we understand how our values arise. (shrink)

To understand the complex religious dynamics in a globalizing world, Arjun Appadurai's view on imagination as a social practice, Charles Taylor's view on social imaginaries, and John Dewey's view on moral imagination are discussed. Their views enable us to understand religious dynamics as a “space of contestation” in which secular and religious images and voices interact, argue, and clash. Imagination can be used in violent ways in service of extremist world images that spread over the world by the (...) intensive use of social media. This raises an urgent question for psychology of religion: what enables people psychologically to engage in religious pluralism, understood as negotiating and perhaps stimulating diversity in non-violent, constructive ways? It is argued that dialogical psychology helps us to understand the self as the anchor point and navigational system of the social imaginaries that are at play in religious dynamics. (shrink)

This chapter investigates the idea of collective epistemic commonality suggested by Charles Taylor's example, and contrasts it with a distributive notion of epistemic commonality. It describes a number of accounts of collective epistemic commonality, and then argues that, contrary to what Taylor suggests, conversation is not constitutive of collective epistemic commonality as such, but rather presupposes basic forms of collective epistemic commonality. Taylor's remarks indicate that understanding the consensus is insufficient as whatever proposition people rationally and (...) openly accept in conversation. It is suggested that joint attitudes are irreducible, relational, and pre-reflective, and that such attitudes are joint, in the respect that the participants are aware of themselves as a ‘we’. Highly inferential beliefs need some form of communication, and are probably really some form of joint commitment. (shrink)

In the first part the text specifies Hannah Arendt's philosophical approach in three dimensions: a) She used Max Scheler's new phenomenology of living beings . b) She transformed Karl Jaspers' extraordinary limit situations of human conduct into anthropological conditions. c) Such conditions are questions that do need answers in forms of "vita active" and of "vita contemplative". Arendt moved from Max Scheler's Philosophical Anthropology to her own historical conception of the human condition inside the heterogeneity of our Occidental tradition. The (...) second part of this paper gives an overview about her network of concepts that enables a comparison of Occidental cultures via the change of dominance in relations of vita active and vita contemplative. The third part situates her approach between those of Michel Foucault and Charles Taylor in a debate that is needed at present. Her historic-phenomenological anthropology allows her a critique of modernity without a hermeneutic circle and without an anthropological circle. (shrink)

The point of departure of this review essay on Charles Taylor′s “A Secular Age” is that Taylor adds a new meaning to the already numerous meanings of the concept of “secularization”. His main interest is in the rise of what he calls “the secular option” and in the repercussions the availability of this option has for believers and non-believers. While his monumental study offers an immensely rich and rewarding material for the understanding of these processes, two major (...) weaknesses are identified here. 1. By taking medieval Christianity – and not a completely pre-axial civilization – as the prototype of an “enchanted” world, Taylor is in danger of interpreting the constant efforts at reform as a linear vector leading to modernity. This does not do justice to the contingency of these processes. 2. Taylor seems to overestimate the quantitative dimension of what he calls the post-Durkheimian forms of religious life, but his understanding of the true nature of the Church as a quintessentially network society is very important. In general, in some parts Taylor′s masterful history of ideas has to be extended into a more sociologically oriented explanation of secularization processes. (shrink)

Summary This article presents and compares aspects of Charles Taylor's and Hans Blumenberg's seemingly opposing views about agency and epistemology, setting them in the context of the tradition in German ideas called ?philosophical anthropology?, with which both align their thinking. It presents key strands of this tradition, from their inception in the late eighteenth century in the writings of Herder, Schiller and others associated with anthropology to their articulation by thinkers such as Max Scheler, Arnold Gehlen and Karl (...) Löwith in the early twentieth century. The main issues here are: man's status as part of nature or as ?radically divorced? from nature; the possibility of objective knowledge of man versus the epistemological status of human ?meaning?; the view of knowledge as abstraction versus ?concrete? or ?lived? experience. Within these parameters the article contrasts Taylor's emphasis on ?engaged? agency, embedded in discourses, bodies and predispositions, with Blumenberg's sense of our ?indirect? relation to reality: ?delayed, selective, and above all ?metaphorical??. It concludes that each position may be traced back to a key strand in philosophical anthropology: the one emphasising man's unique freedom, the other that sees man's grasp of reality as uniquely interwoven with a background of meanings. (shrink)

Charles Taylor es comúnmente identificado como uno de los padres fundadores del comunitarismo teórico, pero tal identificación no da cuenta de la amplitud del pensamiento del filósofo canadiense. A través de este trabajo de investigación pretendemos articular la filosofía de Taylor partiendo del proyecto filosófico que explícitamente inicia en sus primeros trabajos, a saber, la configuración de una antropología filosófica, a través de la cual abordaremos los grandes temas que han ocupado su vida -ética, política y religión- (...) en la puesta en marcha de una filosofía con intenciones puramente prácticas.Charles Taylor is commonly identified as one of the founding fathers of theoretical communitarianism, but such identification does not realize the extent of his thinking. Through this research, we try to articulate the Taylor's philosophy from his philosophical project, that he explicitly started in his early work, namely, the configuration of a philosophical anthropology, through which we will address the major issues that have occupied his life - ethics, politics and religion- in the implementation of a philosophy with purely practical intentions. (shrink)

En este ensayo voy a explorar el legado de Aristóteles, Hegel y Nietzsche en Taylor en relación con su enfoque moderno. Creo que rastrear las huellas de los planteamientos de aquellos filósofos ayuda a entender mejor el enfoque de Taylor y la apropiación moderna que hace de ellos. Una pregunta surge de la búsqueda tras las fuentes filosóficas del enfoque de Taylor: ¿Aristóteles, Hegel o Nietzsche? ¿O quizá ninguno? ¿O tal vez todos un poco? Vamos a ver (...) en qué medida dichos filósofos han sido influyentes en el enfoque moderno de Taylor. (shrink)

This is the first comprehensive evaluation of Charles Taylor's work and a major contribution to leading questions in philosophy and the human sciences as they face an increasingly pluralistic age. Charles Taylor is one of the most influential contemporary moral and political philosophers: in an era of specialisation he is one of the few thinkers who has developed a comprehensive philosophy which speaks to the conditions of the modern world in a way that is compelling to (...) specialists in various disciplines. This collection of specially commissioned essays brings together twelve distinguished scholars from a variety of fields to discuss critically Taylor's work. The topics range from the history of philosophy, to truth, modernity and postmodernity, theism, interpretation, the human sciences, liberalism, pluralism and difference. Taylor responds to all the contributions and re-articulates his own views. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article responds to the contributors to this special issue. I clarify my views on critical theory, capitalism, morality, sociality, secularity, subjectivity, and childhood. I close with some general remarks about the necessity for a hermeneutical approach to social, ethical, and political questions.

'Most of us are still groping for answers about what makes life worth living, or what confers meaning on individual lives', writes Charles Taylor in Sources of the Self. 'This is an essentially modern predicament.' Charles Taylor's latest book sets out to define the modern identity by tracing its genesis, analysing the writings of such thinkers as Augustine, Descartes, Montaigne, Luther, and many others. This then serves as a starting point for a renewed understanding of modernity. (...) Taylor argues that modern subjectivity has its roots in ideas of human good, and is in fact the result of our long efforts to define and attain the good. The modern turn inwards is far from being a disastrous rejection of rationality, as its critics contend, but has at its heart what Taylor calls the affirmation of ordinary life. He concludes that the modern identity, and its attendant rejection of an objective order of reason, is far richer in moral sources that its detractors allow. Sources of the Self provides a decisive defence of the modern order and a sharp rebuff to its critics. (shrink)

Since its birth, sociology has struggled vainly to achieve an encompassing intellectual 'synthesis' as it has fought against the explosion of ideas about the social world. This volume considers an alternative response that has recently developed to conditions of intellectual fragmentation: 'the dialogical turn, ' a sociological approach that welcomes a plurality of orientations and perspectives as the essential basis for establishing productive dialogue. This volume explores this exciting approach, building on the ideas of Donald N. Levine, whose extensive writings (...) on the forms and functions of intellectual dialogue provide the point of departure for an internationally renowned group of scholars. Their innovative chapters assess the role of sociology in the conversation across contemporary academic disciplines, exploring the fundamental structural and conceptual reconstructions now taking place in the social sciences. (shrink)

While some lament the slide of Western culture into relativism and nihilism and others celebrate the trend as a liberating sort of progress, Charles Taylor calls on us to face the moral and political crises of our time, and to make the most ...

The papers by Ronald de Sousa and Steve Davis raise very interesting issues. I think that they have the issue almost right between us, but I want to make some small amendments, which will make a big difference.First, de Sousa: with all the talk about the ‘significance feature,’ I’m not trying to make an in principle argument against the reduction of purpose/action to physical movement/change. Perhaps such an argument is possible, perhaps not. For the moment, all we have is the (...) a posteriori. But that involves our making the most dear-headed possible judgments about our actual intellectual predicament, using this term as a shorthand for a whole set of issues to do with the nature of the phenomena we face, and how they relate or don't relate to the theories on offer. Philosophy can help in this, not because philosophers wheel in bright, shiny a priori possibility arguments, but rather by clarifying what is at stake, and what is going on. (shrink)

Charles Taylor has been one of the most original and influential figures in contemporary philosophy: his 'philosophical anthropology' spans an unusually wide range of theoretical interests and draws creatively on both Anglo-American and Continental traditions in philosophy. A selection of his published papers is presented here in two volumes, structured to indicate the direction and essential unity of the work. He starts from a polemical concern with behaviourism and other reductionist theories (particularly in psychology and the philosophy of (...) language) which aim to model the study of man on the natural sciences. This leads to a general critique of naturalism, its historical development and its importance for modern culture and consciousness; and that in turn points, forward to a positive account of human agency and the self, the constitutive role of language and value, and the scope of practical reason. The volumes jointly present some two decades of work on these fundamental themes, and convey strongly the tenacity, verve and versatility of the author in grappling with them. They will interest a very wide range of philosophers and students of the human sciences. (shrink)

"Charles Taylor presents a fundamental challenge to neoliberal apologists for the new world order--but not only to them.

Addressing such issues as the claims of critics that the application of psychoanalysis to literature, philosophy, the arts, and history results in interpretations that are speculative, externally imposed, reductionistic, and subjective, Hanly (philosophy, U. of Toronto; training analyst, Toronto Psychoanalytic Institute) searches for objectivity in the epistemological foundations and methods of applied psychoanalysis. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Charles Taylor has been one of the most original and influential figures in contemporary philosophy: his 'philosophical anthropology' spans an unusually wide range of theoretical interests and draws creatively on both Anglo-American and Continental traditions in philosophy. A selection of his published papers is presented here in two volumes, structured to indicate the direction and essential unity of the work. He starts from a polemical concern with behaviourism and other reductionist theories (particularly in psychology and the philosophy of (...) language) which aim to model the study of man on the natural sciences. This leads to a general critique of naturalism, its historical development and its importance for modern culture and consciousness; and that in turn points, forward to a positive account of human agency and the self, the constitutive role of language and value, and the scope of practical reason. The volumes jointly present some two decades of work on these fundamental themes, and convey strongly the tenacity, verve and versatility of the author in grappling with them. They will interest a very wide range of philosophers and students of the human sciences. (shrink)

From Sources of the Self to A Secular Age, Charles Taylor has shown how we create ways of being, as individuals and as a society. Here, he demonstrates that language is at the center of this generative process. Language does not merely describe; it constitutes meaning, and the shared practice of speech shapes human experience.

This interview with Charles Taylor explores a central concern throughout his work, namely, his concern to ‘reenchant’ self and world through a careful examination of value as emanating from the world rather than from ourselves. It focuses especially on the status of his central doctrine of ‘strong evaluation’ against the background of mainstream meta-ethical theories, such as neo-Kantian constructivism and robust realist non-naturalism. Additionally, the relationship between Taylor’s theism and his moral–political philosophy is discussed. A key issue (...) that is examined is what ontological background picture can make sense of the strong evaluative experience of higher worth. Some other related issues that are explored revolve around Taylor’s papers ‘Disenchantment-Reenchantment’ and ‘Recovering the Sacred’, which tentatively explore the meaning of reenchantment. (shrink)

The place of religion in society has changed profoundly in the last few centuries, particularly in the West. In what will be a defining book for our time, Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean, and what, precisely, happens when a society becomes one in which faith is only one human possibility among others.

For five individuals, a social network was constructed from a series of his or her dreams. Three important network measures were calculated for each network: transitivity, assortativity, and giant component proportion. These were monotonically related; over the five networks as transitivity increased, assortativity increased and giant component proportion decreased. The relations indicate that characters appear in dreams systematically. Systematicity likely arises from the dreamer's memory of people and their relations, which is from the dreamer's cognitive social network. But the dream (...) social network is not a copy of the cognitive social network. Waking life social networks tend to have positive assortativity; that is, people tend to be connected to others with similar connectivity. Instead, in our sample of dream social networks assortativity is more often negative or near 0, as in online social networks. We show that if characters appear via a random walk, negative assortativity can result, particularly if the random walk is biased as suggested by remote associations. (shrink)

La philosophie morale, pas moins que les autres branches de la philosophie, est caractérisée par des contradictions et des dichotomies qui aboutissent à des discussions sans fin. On garde l'impression que l'expérience morale doit être extrêmement individualisée; sans cela, comment des philosophes, également, sinon exceptionnellement, doués intellectuellement, en arrivent-ils à des conclusions aussi diverses quand ils réfléchissent à la question? Et le problème est plus qu'un problème intellectuel. La valeur de l'existence humaine et l'existence humaine elle-même dépendent de valeurs morales (...) et d'impératifs selon lesquels l'homme dirige sa vie. Comprendre de façon cohérente et réaliste la moralité constitue un besoin perpétuellement urgent que la philosophie jusqu'à maintenant, du moins, n'a pu satisfaire. (shrink)

This article deals with two aspects of psychoanalytic history. The first is the history of ideas, specifically the notions of a one- and two-person psychology that are in such wide use today. Second, the authors attend, much more critically, to a disturbance of memory (repeated distortion, omission, selective representation, and misrepresentation) that has accompanied scholarly discussion of these ideas for the past 50 years. Finally, the authors attempt to restore the original meaning of the person-psychology concept and illustrate its relevance (...) for contemporary psychoanalytic debate. (shrink)

A major and comprehensive study of the philosophy of Hegel, his place in the history of ideas, and his continuing relevance and importance. Professor Taylor relates Hegel to the earlier history of philosophy and, more particularly, to the central intellectual and spiritual issues of his own time. He sees these in terms of a pervasive tension between the evolving ideals of individuality and self-realization on the one hand, and on the other a deeply-felt need to find significance in a (...) wider community. Charles Taylor engages with Hegel sympathetically, on Hegel's own terms and, as the the subject demands, in detail. We are made to grasp the interconnections of the system without being overwhelmed or overawed by its technicality. We are shown its importance and its limitations, and are enabled to stand back from it. (shrink)

In this book Taylor brings together some of his best essays, including "Overcoming Epistemology," "The Validity of Transcendental Argument," "Irreducibly Social ...