Romanticism and Modernity

This chapter explores the implications of Taylor’s analysis of romanticism’s influence on modernity and the tension, in his opinion, between modernity’s dominant emphasis on instrumental rationality and romanticism’s ideals, like expression, creativity and community. Taylor wants to show, we argue, the extent to which the strains of modern society derive from this tension and how romanticism’s ideals have influenced modern political movements, particularly nationalism. In particular, Taylor’s own critical diagnoses of the ‘malaise of modernity’ are influenced by romanticism, as is evident from his observations on the fragility of social bonds in the face of industrial and technological advancement, as well as in his comments on contemporary culture’s potential loss of meaning and significance. These experiences of alienation are the other side, so to speak, of the modern ethic of authenticity, which has resulted in the widespread concern with self-realisation. Taylor argues that romantic authors, especially Humboldt and Herder, developed an expressivist theory of language, a holistic conception of liberal freedoms, and were among the first to appreciate the importance of a community’s political culture to modern freedoms. Taylor is shown to be able to claim on this basis that the debate between liberalism and communitarians has been at cross-purposes.

Democracy and Recognition

This chapter focuses on Taylor’s account of the politics of recognition and the broad debates that his essay on multiculturalism stimulated. Taylor was responding to the new politics of identity and the contestation over the implications of cultural diversity, especially in multicultural societies like Canada and Australia. Taylor is shown to bring his own theoretical framework to bear on these topics and to emphasize the cultural underpinnings of identity politics in the values of equal respect and equal dignity. Taylor’s highlighting the broad background experiences of democratic forms of social association is somewhat similar, we argue, to that of Alexis de Tocqueville on democracy and democratisation. Taylor’s reworking of aspects of Tocqueville’s diagnoses of modern society’s potential for ‘democratic despotism’ and the paradoxes of individualism are evaluated. Whilst acknowledging the significance of Taylor’s contributions to theories of recognition and democracy, the critical responses to Taylor’s accounts are outlined and his conceptions are compared with later discussions of these themes, particularly those by Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth. Taylor’s updating of his perspective on recognition and recent analysis of current tendencies for ‘democratic exclusion’ and their remedies are assessed.

A Secular Age: Controversies and Critiques

This chapter continues to discuss Taylor’s important study on religion and secularism, A Secular Age. The chapter details why his arguments on secularity have generated intense discussions and divided opinion. The chapter sets out a series of arguments that critics of the book have raised. This includes the response by Robert Bellah about how Taylor understands modernity; José Casanova’s view that Taylor focuses on Western understandings of secularism; and the opinion of other scholars that Taylor has a view of history that gives precedence to romanticism, and to history as the development of ideas rather than focusing on particular events. Other responses to Taylor’s book focus on the topic of (dis)enchantment, and debate how the arguments found in A Secular Age might have been strengthened by research methods that use quantitative and qualitative data about religion in modern societies. The chapter shows the importance of Taylor’s study on religion and secularism and argues that it will continue to generate discussion and debate for some time to come.

Charles Taylor’s Work after A Secular Age

This chapter explores what Taylor has been working on since publishing A Secular Age. This includes his work on religious freedom, his contribution to a report for the Government of Quebec on diversity and multiculturalism in the province, and his study on language and its place and role in the political and social debates that are shaping our world. The chapter examines Taylor’s arguments about religious freedom and its importance for harmonious social conditions in modern societies that are struggling to negotiate the boundaries between the religious and the secular realms, particularly at a time when both religious and secular viewpoints remain important to many citizens in modern democracies. The chapter then provides an overview of Taylor’s work on a report for the Government of Quebec that was commissioned at a time of intense scrutiny in the province about the status of the French language, the maintaining of French cultural traditions, and issues to do with jobs and incomes as the region faces high levels of immigration and increased diversity. Taylor’s book The Language Animal is also examined, and his views about how we understand language as being expressive or functional is assessed.

Conclusion

The Conclusion to Taylor and Politics: A Critical Introduction sums up the main contents and arguments of the book. The chapter discusses how Taylor understands the Enlightenment, and shows how themes such as modernity, romanticism, democracy, multiculturalism, and a number of others, are foundational to Taylor’s project. It also summarises the importance of understanding the modern self, which was assessed in the book, and how individuals navigate modern life and its challenges. The chapter examines Taylor’s speech given when he was awarded the Kluge Prize. In this speech Taylor argues that diversity, secularism, and an appreciation for the importance of language are central to creating greater levels of harmony in the current social and political context. The chapter concludes by showing how Taylor’s work can help in efforts to understand contemporary developments in global and local politics, such as economic challenges brought on by capitalism, and populist forms of politics that have been at the forefront of debate in recent times.

Charles Taylor: A Thinker for Our Times

This chapter provides a brief biography of Taylor’s life growing up in Canada, his studies in the UK, his contribution to party politics in Canada, and his intellectual work as a scholar. The chapter provides context for understanding Taylor’s work and the backdrop of the global events that helped to shape his life, from the Second World War and the Cold War, through to the changing social climate of the 1960s. His interests in history, philosophy and religion are highlighted, as well as the influence of his family and his teachers, especially Isaiah Berlin who taught Taylor while a student at Oxford University. Taylor’s early study on behaviourism is discussed, and an overview of some of his key texts is provided, such as his work on Hegel, multiculturalism, political debates in Canada, the self, and his concept of authenticity.

Modern Social Imaginaries

Taylor’s political thinking seeks to come to terms with the changed ideological and political context that coalesced during the twentieth century’s last decades and the new millennium. It involves a reinterpretation of modernity in light of its questioning and a new take on the cultural background to modernity’s dominant institutional forms, liberal democracy and modern capitalism. Taylor’s contributions to two theoretical perspectives that offer important insights into the present are explained: multiple (or alternative) modernities and social imaginaries. The chapter clarifies multiple modernities and social imaginaries’ intellectual backgrounds and development in response to specific theoretical and political problems, like the dissolution of State Socialist societies, anti-colonial struggles, and religious fundamentalism. It argues that Taylor’s desire to revisit the question of the relationship between religion and the secular motivated his work on modern social imaginaries. Taylor contends that the modern social imaginary generates a notion of society as constituted as a moral order of mutual benefit and that this image informs individual practices. Taylor’s proposals are critically compared with those of the principal initiators of the social imaginaries theoretical perspective, especially those of Cornelius Castoriadis and Claude Lefort.

Introduction

The Introduction to Taylor and Politics: A Critical Introduction provides an overview of the aims and content of the book. The chapter assesses the importance of studying Taylor’s contribution to social and political debates, and contextualises his work among the efforts of his peers, as well as within the intellectual currents of recent scholarship, including behaviourism, Marxism, analytical philosophy, and postmodernism. The Introduction provides an overview of each chapter of the book, and highlights key themes that are examined, such as romanticism, modernity, democracy, recognition, modern social imaginaries, and religion and secularism. Language, and multiculturalism, issues which Taylor has examined throughout his career are also highlighted. Finally, the Introduction outlines the approach that this book takes when examining Taylor’s contribution to politics and social discourse.

Living in a Secular Age

This chapter assesses the political implications of Taylor’s landmark work A Secular Age and provides an analysis of the book’s content and its implications for debates about religion in modern times. The chapter shows how Taylor understands secularisation today as being about the options that social agents can have to believe or not believe, and how they express what they do or do not believe. The chapter explores how historical developments such as the Enlightenment and Deism have led to this situation, and how people today reveal advanced notions of romantic individuality which he calls expressive individualism. The chapter unpacks key concepts developed in Taylor’s book, such as the buffered self, exclusive humanism, authenticity, and the immanent frame. Finally, the chapter shows how upheavals such as the social changes of the 1960s have influenced modern views about religion and secularity.

Meaning, Identity and Freedom

This chapter argues that four key philosophical themes inform Taylor’s political thought: the problem of meaning, the idea of moral ontology, the concern with identity, and the notion of effective freedom. It shows how Taylor’s conceptions of freedom, meaning and action contribute to his distinctive political perspective and serve to differentiate it from conceptions of political liberalism that prioritise the right over the good. One of Taylor’s major concerns has been developing a philosophical anthropology of the human subject and the chapter explicates this philosophical anthropology’s relationship to Taylor’s moral ontology. Taylor’s links to the tradition of hermeneutic phenomenology are particularly highlighted, emphasising his claims that humans are ‘self-interpreting’ animals and that meaning is central to the human condition. The chapter explains how these ideas are developed in terms of distinctive features of Taylor’s writings, such as the narrative construction of the self and the idea of strong evaluations. A major concern of this discussion is the clarification of the political implications of Taylor’s contention that there is a connection between identity and an orientation to the good. A number of the criticisms of Taylor’s formulation of this relationship are explored and some initial evaluation of his holistic liberalism proposed.