Charles Margrave Taylor

In this extensive inquiry into the sources of modern selfhood, Charles Taylor demonstrates just how rich and precious those resources are. The modern turn to subjectivity, with its attendant rejection of an objective order of reason, has led—it seems to many—to mere subjectivism at the mildest and to sheer nihilism at the worst. Many critics believe that the modern order has no moral backbone and has proved corrosive to all that might foster human good. Taylor rejects this view. He argues that, properly understood, our modern notion of the self provides a framework that more than compensates for the abandonment of substantive notions of rationality.The major insight of Sources of the Self is that modern subjectivity, in all its epistemological, aesthetic, and political ramifications, has its roots in ideas of human good. After first arguing that contemporary philosophers have ignored how self and good connect, the author defines the modern identity by describing its genesis. His effort to uncover and map our moral sources leads to novel interpretations of most of the figures and movements in the modern tradition. Taylor shows that the modern turn inward is not disastrous but is in fact the result of our long efforts to define and reach the good. At the heart of this definition he finds what he calls the affirmation of ordinary life, a value which has decisively if not completely replaced an older conception of reason as connected to a hierarchy based on birth and wealth. In telling the story of a revolution whose proponents have been Augustine, Montaigne, Luther, and a host of others, Taylor's goal is in part to make sure we do not lose sight of their goal and endanger all that has been achieved. Sources of the Self provides a decisive defense of the modern order and a sharp rebuff to its critics.

Almost everyone would agree that the place of religion in our societies has changed profoundly over the years. This book takes up the question of what these changes mean—of what, precisely, happens when a society in which it is virtually impossible not to believe in God becomes one in which faith is only one human possibility among others.

Everywhere we hear talk of decline, of a world that was better once, maybe fifty years ago, maybe centuries ago, but certainly before modernity drew us along its dubious path. 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 of modernity's challenges.At the heart of the modern malaise, according to most accounts, is the notion of authenticity, of self-fulfillment, which seems to render ineffective the whole tradition of common values and social commitment. Though Taylor recognizes the dangers associated with modernity's drive toward self realization, he is not as quick as others to dismiss it. He calls for a freeze on cultural pessimism.In a discussion of ideas and ideologies from Friedrich Nietzsche to Gail Sheehy, from Allan Bloom to Michel Foucault, Taylor sorts out the good from the harmful in the modern cultivation of an authentic self. He sets forth the entire network of thought and morals that link our quest for self-creation with our impulse toward self-fashioning, and shows how such efforts must be conducted against an existing set of rules, or a gridwork of moral measurement. Seen against this network, our modern preoccupations with expression, rights, and the subjectivity of human thought reveal themselves as assets, not liabilities.By looking past simplistic, one-sided judgments of modern culture, by distinguishing the good and valuable from the socially and politically perilous, Taylor articulates the promise of our age. His bracing and provocative book gives voice to the challenge of modernity, and calls on all of us to answer it.

In Malaise of Modernity, Charles Taylor focuses on the key modern concept of self-fulfillment, often attacked as the central support of what Christopher Lasch has called the culture of narcissism. To Taylor, self-fulfillment, although often expressed in self-centered ways, isn't necessarily a rejection of traditional values and social commitment; it also reflects something authentic and valuable in modern culture. Only by distinguishing what is good in this modern striving from what is socially and politically dangerous, Taylor says, can our age be made to deliver its promise.

A new edition of the highly acclaimed book Multiculturalism and "The Politics of Recognition", this paperback brings together an even wider range of leading philosophers and social scientists to probe the political controversy surrounding multiculturalism. Charles Taylor's initial inquiry, which considers whether the institutions of liberal democratic government make room--or should make room--for recognizing the worth of distinctive cultural traditions, remains the centerpiece of this discussion. It is now joined by Jürgen Habermas's extensive essay on the issues of recognition and the democratic constitutional state and by K. Anthony Appiah's commentary on the tensions between personal and collective identities, such as those shaped by religion, gender, ethnicity, race, and sexuality, and on the dangerous tendency of multicultural politics to gloss over such tensions. These contributions are joined by those of other well-known thinkers, who further relate the demand for recognition to issues of multicultural education, feminism, and cultural separatism.

One of the most influential philosophers in the English-speaking world, Charles Taylor is internationally renowned for his contributions to political and moral theory, particularly to debates about identity formation, multiculturalism, secularism, and modernity. In Modern Social Imaginaries, Taylor continues his recent reflections on the theme of multiple modernities. To account for the differences among modernities, Taylor sets out his idea of the social imaginary, a broad understanding of the way a given people imagine their collective social life. Retelling the history of Western modernity, Taylor traces the development of a distinct social imaginary. Animated by the idea of a moral order based on the mutual benefit of equal participants, the Western social imaginary is characterized by three key cultural forms—the economy, the public sphere, and self-governance. Taylor’s account of these cultural formations provides a fresh perspective on how to read the specifics of Western how we came to imagine society primarily as an economy for exchanging goods and services to promote mutual prosperity, how we began to imagine the public sphere as a metaphorical place for deliberation and discussion among strangers on issues of mutual concern, and how we invented the idea of a self-governing people capable of secular “founding” acts without recourse to transcendent principles. Accessible in length and style, Modern Social Imaginaries offers a clear and concise framework for understanding the structure of modern life in the West and the different forms modernity has taken around the world.

This is 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 engages with Hegel sympathetically, on Hegel's own terms and, as the subject demands, in detail. This important book is now reissued with a fresh new cover.

A hundred years after William James delivered the celebrated lectures that became The Varieties of Religious Experience , one of the foremost thinkers in the English-speaking world returns to the questions posed in James's masterpiece to clarify the circumstances and conditions of religion in our day. An elegant mix of the philosophy and sociology of religion, Charles Taylor's powerful book maintains a clear perspective on James's work in its historical and cultural contexts, while casting a new and revealing light upon the present. Lucid, readable, and dense with ideas that promise to transform current debates about religion and secularism, Varieties of Religion Today is much more than a revisiting of James's classic. Rather, it places James's analysis of religious experience and the dilemmas of doubt and belief in an unfamiliar but illuminating context, namely the social horizon in which questions of religion come to be presented to individuals in the first place. Taylor begins with questions about the way in which James conceives his subject, and shows how these questions arise out of different ways of understanding religion that confronted one another in James's time and continue to do so today. Evaluating James's treatment of the ethics of belief, he goes on to develop an innovative and provocative reading of the public and cultural conditions in which questions of belief or unbelief are perceived to be individual questions. What emerges is a remarkable and penetrating view of the relation between religion and social order and, ultimately, of what "religion" means.

With today's emphasis on fast-moving technology, as well as increasing pressure to meet the testing standards of science and math in the classroom, the need to grasp key scientific principles has never been greater. The Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia is the one reference that includes all of the information students need to know in today's fast-paced world. Clearly written and illustrated articles provide in-depth insight and concise authoritative information. An impressive reference section at the end of the book contains minibiographies of famous scientists, plus an illustrated time line of key inventions and discoveries. Arranged thematically into ten chapters, with reference summaries at the end of each chapter and a full index, the encyclopedia does more than merely provide facts about science and technology―it helps the reader think for him or herself, develop an enquiring mind, pose challenging questions, and explore new topics.

In seminal works ranging from Sources of the Self to A Secular Age, Charles Taylor has shown how we create possible ways of being, both as individuals and as a society. In his new book setting forth decades of thought, he demonstrates that language is at the center of this generative process.For centuries, philosophers have been divided on the nature of language. Those in the rational empiricist tradition Hobbes, Locke, Condillac, and their heirs assert that language is a tool that human beings developed to encode and communicate information. In The Language Animal, Taylor explains that this view neglects the crucial role language plays in shaping the very thought it purports to express. Language does not merely describe; it constitutes meaning and fundamentally shapes human experience. The human linguistic capacity is not something we innately possess. We first learn language from others, and, inducted into the shared practice of speech, our individual selves emerge out of the conversation.Taylor expands the thinking of the German Romantics Hamann, Herder, and Humboldt into a theory of linguistic holism. Language is intellectual, but it is also enacted in artistic portrayals, gestures, tones of voice, metaphors, and the shifts of emphasis and attitude that accompany speech. Human language recognizes no boundary between mind and body. In illuminating the full capacity of the language animal, Taylor sheds light on the very question of what it is to be a human being.

Introduction to Hegel's thought for the student and general reader, emphasizing in particular his social and political thought and his continuing relevance to contemporary problems.

In the long-awaited follow-up to The Language Animal , Charles Taylor explores the Romantic poetics central to his theory of language.The Language Animal , Charles Taylor’s 2016 account of human linguistic capacity, was a revelation, toppling scholarly conventions and illuminating our most fundamental selves. But, as Taylor noted in that work, there was much more to be said. Cosmic Connections continues Taylor’s exploration of Romantic and post-Romantic responses to disenchantment and innovations in language.Reacting to the fall of cosmic orders that were at once metaphysical and moral, the Romantics used the symbols and music of poetry to recover contact with reality beyond fragmented existence. They sought to overcome disenchantment and groped toward a new meaning of life. Their accomplishments have been extended by post-Romantic generations into the present day. Taylor’s magisterial work takes us from Hölderlin, Novalis, Keats, and Shelley to Hopkins, Rilke, Baudelaire, and Mallarmé, and on to Eliot, Miłosz, and beyond.In seeking deeper understanding and a different orientation to life, the language of poetry is not merely a pleasurable presentation of doctrines already elaborated elsewhere. Rather, Taylor insists, poetry persuades us through the experience of connection. The resulting conviction is very different from that gained through the force of argument. By its very nature, poetry’s reasoning will often be incomplete, tentative, and enigmatic. But at the same time, its insight is too moving―too obviously true―to be ignored.

Charles Taylor has been one of the most original and influential figures in contemporary 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.

Charles Taylor is one of the most important English-language philosophers at work today; he is also unique in the philosophical community in applying his ideas on language and epistemology to social theory and political problems. In this book Taylor brings together some of his best essays, including "Overcoming Epistemology," "The Validity of Transcendental Argument," "Irreducibly Social Goods," and "The Politics of Recognition." As usual, his arguments are trenchant, straddling the length and breadth of contemporary philosophy and public discourse.The strongest theme running through the book is Taylor's critique of disengagement, instrumental reason, and that individual instances of knowledge, judgment, discourse, or action cannot be intelligible in abstraction from the outside world. By developing his arguments about the importance of "engaged agency," Taylor simultaneously addresses themes in philosophical debate and in a broader discourse of political theory and cultural studies. The thirteen essays in this collection reflect most of the concerns with which he has been involved throughout his career--language, ideas of the self, political participation, the nature of modernity. His intellectual range is extraordinary, as is his ability to clarify what is at stake in difficult philosophical disputes. Taylor's analyses of liberal democracy, welfare economics, and multiculturalism have real political significance, and his voice is distinctive and wise.

Charles Taylor has been one of the most original and influential figures in contemporary 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.

There are, always, more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in one’s philosophy―and in these essays Charles Taylor turns to those things not fully imagined or avenues not wholly explored in his epochal A Secular Age . Here Taylor talks in detail about thinkers who are his allies and interlocutors, such as Iris Murdoch, Alasdair MacIntyre, Robert Brandom, and Paul Celan. He offers major contributions to social theory, expanding on the issues of nationalism, democratic exclusionism, religious mobilizations, and modernity. And he delves even more deeply into themes taken up in A Secular the continuity of religion from the past into the future; the nature of the secular; the folly of hoping to live by “reason alone”; the perils of moralism. He also speculates on how irrationality emerges from the heart of rationality itself, and why violence breaks out again and again. In A Secular Age , Taylor more evidently foregrounded his Catholic faith, and there are several essays here that further explore that faith. Overall, this is a hopeful book, showing how, while acknowledging the force of religion and the persistence of violence and folly, we nonetheless have the power to move forward once we have given up the brittle pretensions of a narrow rationalism.

"An urgent manifesto for the reconstruction of democratic belonging in our troubled times." --Davide PanagiaAcross the world, democracies are suffering from a disconnect between the people and political elites. In communities where jobs and industry are scarce, many feel the government is incapable of understanding their needs or addressing their problems. The resulting frustration has fueled the success of destabilizing demagogues. To reverse this pattern and restore responsible government, we need to reinvigorate democracy at the local level. But what does that mean? Drawing on examples of successful community building in cities large and small, from a shrinking village in rural Austria to a neglected section of San Diego, Reconstructing Democracy makes a powerful case for re-engaging citizens. It highlights innovative grassroots projects and shows how local activists can form alliances and discover their own power to solve problems.

It is, without question, an incident that defined an era in sports entertainment and marked - if not tainted - the legacies of two of the greatest professional wrestlers in modern history. It was a memorable and some say disgraceful event that is universally known today by just one Montreal.The host city of the 1997 Survivor Series provided the location for a scandal the likes of which sports entertainment had never seen before and almost certainly never will again. Yet fifteen years after Vince McMahon perpetrated the ultimate con against Bret Hart on his native Canadian soil, the controversy remains.To some, the claim upon which this work is based is every bit as controversial as the finish to the main event that night in Montreal. But the facts continue to point to what is definitely the biggest scandal in wrestling history - but possibly not for the reason most presently recognize.“You screwed Bret! You screwed Bret!”It's the chant that Shawn Michaels and Vince McMahon will be forced to hear wherever they go for the rest of their lives regardless of how much either man repents or accomplishes. Their collusion in Montreal will haunt their respective legacies forever.But did they really screw Bret?"If Bret was in on this," a WWE source speculates, "Bret may be the guy who screwed all of us. He may have screwed us into believing he was screwed."Today, Bret Hart has finally made peace with Shawn Michaels. The same goes for Vince McMahon. And, by most accounts, all parties involved have moved forward in their lives. But our collective memories refuse to relinquish images from that night in Montreal. And until the real story is told, closure may never come."Inside The Montreal Screw Who Really Got Screwed in the WWE?" is a compelling and completely unauthorized look at what may have actually happened at Survivor Series 1997. Derived from exclusive interviews, extensive investigative research, and a healthy dose of common sense, this gripping ebook from Sports Entertainment Publishing is a must-read for wrestling fans This unauthorized work is not endorsed by or affiliated with WWE, Bret "The Hitman" Hart, Shawn Michaels, Vince McMahon or any representatives thereof.

¿Qué significa afirmar que vivimos en una era secular? Casi todos coincidiríamos en que en cierto sentido es así, al menos en Occidente. Y es claro que el lugar de la religión en nuestras sociedades ha cambiado profundamente en los últimos siglos. En lo que será un libro definitorio para nuestra época, Charles Taylor aborda la cuestión de lo que significan estos cambios, más concretamente, de lo que ocurre cuando una sociedad en la que es virtualmente imposible no creer en Dios se convierte en una sociedad en la que la fe, aun para el creyente más acérrimo, es apenas una posibilidad humana entre otras. Taylor, desde hace mucho tiempo uno de nuestros pensadores más agudos, ofrece una perspectiva histórica. Examina el desarrollo, en la "cristiandad occidental", de aquellos aspectos de la modernidad que llamamos seculares. En realidad, no describe una transformación única y continua, sino una serie de nuevos comienzos, que implican la disolución o desestabilización de las formas anteriores de vida religiosa y la creación de otras nuevas. Como veremos aquí, lo que caracteriza al mundo secular de hoy no es la ausencia de religión -aunque en algunas sociedades la creencia y la práctica religiosas han disminuido notablemente-, sino más bien la continua multiplicación de nuevas opciones, religiosas, espirituales y antirreligiosas, a las que los individuos y los grupos se aferran para dar sentido a sus vidas y para dar forma a sus aspiraciones espirituales. Lo que esto significa para el mundo -incluyendo las nuevas formas de vida religiosa colectiva que favorece, con su tendencia a una movilización masiva generadora de violencia- es lo que Charles Taylor desentraña en este libro tan oportuno para nuestro tiempo como intemporal.

اين کتاب شامل چهار گفتار در حوزه دنياگرايي ، دين و فرهنگ است که سه گفتار از تيلور و يک گفتار از فرهنگ رجايي- استاد فلسفه سياسي دانشگاه کارلتون کاناداست - ضمن اين که ايشان پيشگفتار مبسوط و نوشتن نتيجه (موخره) را نيز به عهده داشت. پرسش مستتر در عنوان «زندگي فضيلتمند در عصر سکولار» را مي توان اين گونه بازنوشت : چگونه مي توان در جهان و دوراني که براساس جهان بيني سکولار همه شمول بنا شده، شکل گرفته و قاعده بازي آن به شرط همه حضوري اراده انسان سامان داده شده ، يک زندگي فضيلتمند و موفق داشت؟

Death opens the gates to resurrection. The pathways to faith are diverse, but all carry components of death and renewal. In Avenues of Conversations with Jonathan Guilbault , Charles Taylor takes readers through a handful of books that played a crucial role in shaping his posture as a believer, a process that involved leaving the old behind and embracing the new. In a dynamic interview-style structure, Taylor answers questions from Jonathan Guilbault about how each book has informed his thought. The five sections of Avenues of Faith briefly introduce authors and their principal works before delving into the associated discussion. Taylor and Guilbault engage Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception , Friedrich Hölderlin’s poetry, Charles Baudelaire’s The Flowers of Evil , Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov , and Brother Émile’s Faithful to the Listening to Yves Congar . By exploring themes such as faith, the church, freedom, language, philosophy, and more, this book engages both literary enthusiasts and spiritual seekers. Scholars of Taylor will recognize the philosopher’s continuation of his reflections on modernity as he expresses his faith. Avenues of Faith gives readers unprecedented access to a world-renowned philosopher’s reflections on the literary masterpieces that have shaped his life and scholarship and that continue to stand the test of time.

AS NEW softcover, free tracking number, clean NEW text, solid binding, NO remainders NOT ex-library, smoke free; slight gentle shelfwear / storage-wear; WE SHIP FAST. Carefully packed and quickly sent. 201607545as While Thesis/Explanation is a complex book on a complicated subject its main thrust can be distilled into two overlapping that behavior, whether animal or human,is purposive, involving some sort of teleology. And thus, secondly, that it cannot be reduced down to a putatively ‘lower level’ of explanation (whether mechanical, chemical or operant). Taylor’s engagement with these two concepts - teleology and reductionism - runs throughout the book and the majority of Explanation is devoted to analyzing these concepts from a variety of different angles. While there are a number of ways that Taylor does this,including a critique of ‘theory language’ and ‘observation language’, in-depth criticisms of specific psychological experiments and deconstructions of learning theory, the philosophical critique of reductionism in favor of teleology is developed in the first part of Explanation. Please choose Priority / Expedited shipping for faster delivery. (No shipping to Mexico, Brazil or Italy.)

Introducción y traducción de Sonia E. Rodríguez GarcíaEste libro recoge el ensayo «El futuro del pasado religioso» junto con otros trabajos en los que Charles Taylor profundiza en las tesis más relevantes de su obra «La era secular» lo que permite una aproximación directa y sistemática a su filosofía de la religión. En clara oposición a la teoría clásica de la secularización del mundo occidental, Taylor desarrolla un conjunto de narrativas para dar cuenta de aquellos vectores que, desde un pasado religioso, se prolongan y transforman hasta nuestro presente. Solo rastreando estas características y líneas de acción será posible comprender la pervivencia de la religión y sus formas presentes y futuras. A partir de este desarrollo, Taylor plantea los principales retos a los que se enfrenta la religión en la actualidad: el aparente declive de la creencia en cualquier forma de trascendencia, el auge de los fundamentalismos y su conexión con la violencia categórica, la comprensión de la razón religiosa como modo deficitario de razonamiento, la pérdida de significados y el impulso al reencantamiento, la tensión entre ética, política y religión en la era democrática o el peligro del moralismo que acompaña al humanismo exclusivo. Para estos y otros problemas ofrece Taylor sus propias claves interpretativas en la búsqueda de una mejor comprensión y de posibles soluciones, configurando una ágil filosofía de la religión con clara vocación práctica.

In this essay Charles Taylor defines what is essential to democracy beyond its institutional manifestations―namely, representative institutions, popular suffrage, and political parties. Taylor supports a republican democratic theory, which he opposes to neoliberal democracy. Neoliberalism views democracy instrumentally and attaches no intrinsic value to political participation and self-government. Following Tocqueville, Taylor emphasizes the identification of citizens with the common good while rejecting monolithic constructions of a Rousseauean general will. Taylor seeks to outline a republican democratic theory that responds to contemporary challenges, particularly those that relate to the exclusion of cultural minorities in increasingly multicultural societies. The essential characteristic of the Tocquevillian compromise attained by Taylor is a sincere and innovative appreciation of diversity. First presented in Chile in 1986, Democracia Republicana / Republican Democracy foresees a republican solution for the problems generated by the neoliberal democratic system inherited from Pinochet’s dictatorship. The essay was missing for many years and was only recently discovered. It is published here for the first time in both Spanish and English.

Stunning photographs and evocative, full-color drawings combine with the lively and easily accessible narrative of The Oxford Children's Book of Science to take children on an unforgettable tour through a mysterious world of exploration, knowledge, and discovery. From lightning to lasers andfrom dandelions to DNA, this inviting book travels through every area of science, explaining simply and entertainingly the major processes, forces and structures that shape the world of nature. Starting with the basics and moving on to challenging ideas from bacteria to the Milky Way, Charles Taylorand Stephen Pople tie every scientific concept to everyday issues children can relate to. While describing how a hologram is created, for example, the authors trick their readers into a full-fledged explanation of how light is produced and disseminated; rock concerts and a soccer ball are used asexamples in discussions of electronics and airflow.The Oxford Children's Book of Science is a treat for browsers, and the glossary of key scientific terms and the alphabetical index are ideal research and study tools. This authoritative, lavishly illustrated, and accessible volume will find a welcome place in any home or school.

En los últimos siglos Occidente ha ensanchado el abanico de las opciones de la creencia, ya sean religiosas, ateas u otras difíciles de clasificar. Un proceso paulatino de declive de la fe y retirada de la religión de la vida pública. Este retroceso supone un cambio impactante si pensamos en el papel que hasta hace poco jugaban las iglesias cristianas en el mundo Occidental. ¿Por qué ha sucedido todo esto? ¿Cuáles son los rasgos del nuevo paisaje espiritual? La era secular es el ensayo escrito más ambicioso y sobresaliente sobre el complejo proceso de secularización en Occidente que aún sigue en marcha. El filósofo Charles Taylor desgrana, en este segundo volumen, el cambio de las condiciones de la fe que desde la Ilustración socavaron las viejas formas y sentaron las bases de una nueva alternativa humanista. Sin embargo, este debilitamiento de las representaciones anteriores no ha sido incompatible con la persistencia de cierto anhelo de religiosidad, lo cual se traduce en nuestros días, en el florecimiento de múltiples alternativas —a veces contradictorias— y en un novedoso pluralismo en cuestión de espiritualidad.

In this collection of essays the distinguished and internationally renowned philosopher Charles Taylor examines federalism and nationalism in Canada, emphasising issues surrounding the Canada/Quebec question in the last twenty-five years. He analyses the singularity of Quebec within the larger Canadian mosaic, providing a reasoned defence for the recognition of Quebec's distinctiveness within a reformed federal system.

Religion ist nichts eindeutiges. >Religion< ist ein Begriff, der gerne missbraucht wird und dessen Vielschichtigkeit es zu ergründen lohnt.Charles Taylor tastet sich aus zwei Perspektiven an das Problem heran: aus einer statischen (indem er den durch militante oder spirituelle Gruppen festgelegten Sinn des Begriffs untersucht) und aus einer flexibleren (indem er die Verbindungen und Differenzen von Religion zu Magie, Spiritualismus und Säkularismus herausarbeitet).Sein Essay ist eine Demonstration dessen, was große Philosophie auch in kleinster Form zu leisten vermag.