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Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity
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.
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.
624 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
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About the author
Charles Margrave Taylor
151books622followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the ŷ database with this name. This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name.
Other authors with this name:
Charles Taylor
Charles Taylor, Journalist, Film critic
Charles Margrave Taylor CC GOQ FBA FRSC is a Canadian philosopher, and professor emeritus at McGill University. He is best known for his contributions to political philosophy, the philosophy of social science, history of philosophy and intellectual history. This work has earned him the prestigious Kyoto Prize, the Templeton Prize, the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy, and the John W. Kluge Prize, in addition to widespread esteem among philosophers. (Source: Wikipedia)
Other authors with this name:
Charles Taylor
Charles Taylor, Journalist, Film critic
Charles Margrave Taylor CC GOQ FBA FRSC is a Canadian philosopher, and professor emeritus at McGill University. He is best known for his contributions to political philosophy, the philosophy of social science, history of philosophy and intellectual history. This work has earned him the prestigious Kyoto Prize, the Templeton Prize, the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy, and the John W. Kluge Prize, in addition to widespread esteem among philosophers. (Source: Wikipedia)
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June 9, 2018
“To know who I am is a species of knowing where I stand. My identity is defined by the commitments and identifications which provide the frame or horizon within which I can try to determine from case to case what is good, or valuable, or what ought to be done, or what I endorse or oppose. In other words, it is the horizon within which I am capable of taking a stand.�
Taylor locates the problem of self-knowledge at the heart of our naturalistic culture. He shows how the naturalistic paradigm we inherit from modern science operates with an impoverished theory of human nature that fails to do justice to our experience. In his view, the reigning picture of nature provided by contemporary science, in allowing no place for nature as a bearer of meanings and values, leaves no place for experience, since experience just is the disclosure of being as meaning and value. As a result, the one thing conspicuously missing from current efforts to attain a scientific theory of everything is ourselves, as experiencing, meaning-disclosing agents. We cannot know ourselves by locating ourselves in the system of the world that current naturalism represents, with its tendency to eliminate the terms in which we understand our experience. If we could boil down this book to a basic insight, it is that the self is a moral subject before it is a natural object, and that current naturalism fails to offer us a paradigm by which to conceive the subject.
In this work, Taylor strives to show how many of our current problems in moral philosophy and philosophy of mind stem from the principled blindness that naturalistic presuppositions impose on us. In his view, these presuppositions lead to an impoverishing of meaning, to a loss of our ability to give content to the central metaphysical concepts that in the past have helped us interpret our experience and characterize it as a systematic whole. Taylor shows how naturalism leaves us with incoherent accounts of ourselves that often implicitly presuppose the richer phenomenological and ontological terms that they attempt to explain away (chief among which are those terms by which we conceive the subject as meaning-making agent and the world as a ground of valuation). He proposes his work as a “recovery of meanings� and as a reconstitution of those experiential phenomena that, being presupposed by naturalistic accounts, cannot be explained by them. Overall, I think that Taylor persuasively shows that in order to attain any account of self that can ground moral philosophy, we must recognize that the goal of explanation still is to “save the phenomena� in their coherence and meaningfulness.
Taylor shows how modern naturalism leaves us with an alienated subject and an objectified nature. A stark divide grows between the two which gives rise to the specter of nihilism. Reasoning becomes an empty formal procedure aiming at the control of nature. Reason can no longer acquire content through an experiential engagement with nature in which a meaning is born that temporarily unites subject and object in a single project. Scientific reason benefits from this state of affairs because a disengaged subject better achieves the objectification of phenomena required to control them. However, Taylor shows that the consequences for moral philosophy, for philosophy of mind, for philosophical anthropology, and for our culture generally, are nothing short of disastrous. The “acosmic subject� this naturalist paradigm foists on us, as Merleau-Ponty had previously argued, cannot be the subject that shapes meanings through her experience of the world. One could see Taylor's work as an effort to recover something like the premodern cosmic subject, but within a thoroughly modern framework.
In the wake of modern naturalism, meaning itself becomes problematic for us. Philosophy today must begin with the problem of meaning, of accounting for its possibility in a natural world that precludes all emergence of meaning. In particular, meaning becomes problematic when we find ourselves outside any taken-for-granted shared world-picture. In Taylor’s eyes, the crucial philosophical problem of our day stems from the gaping divide that remains between our scientifically-informed picture of nature and our best account of our experience. Taylor argues that naturalism, in failing to give a place to values in nature, thereby fails to account for selves, since selves just are an orientation to being perceived as a value (or "constitutive good," in his terminology). Naturalist ontology has two options: either it eliminates values by defining them out of existence as meaningless (some form of positivism), or it reduces value-talk to talk about contingent facts about psychological states or sociological factors. But then, Taylor points out, values become relative to either personal or group preference. Because naturalism insists on the mind-dependence of values, it leads either to relativism, or to outright nihilism. So much for being able to say to the Nazi that his genocidal views are objectively wrong, despite his culture's defining it as a good! To escape this predicament, we must construct an ontology that allows us to conceive of values as grounded in being itself, rather than its being contingent on conscious states.
Taylor offers some persuasive, transcendental arguments that show that current naturalists operate with an incoherent concept of self. Since value judgment is a part of what it is to be a functioning agent, any theory that denies the features of value judgments (objectivity being one of them) is incoherent. Time and again he shows how naturalist ontology, when consistently pursued in the ethical domain, leads to what he calls “practical self-contradictions� - i.e. it leads us to presuppose in practice terms the existence and meaningfulness of which the explicit theory denies. Interestingly, he criticizes both Kantians and consequentialists on this score. He shows how both presuppose a richer reserve of objective, mind-independent values than their explicit theories allow for in order to escape relativism.
By refusing to recognize a robust place for values in the natural world, naturalism leads to an impoverishment of our available means to make sense of our experience. Naturalist ontology, by leaving us with a "cramped and truncated view of morality," leads to a similarly cramped and truncated view of selves. Ultimately, naturalist ontology, as it stands, leaves the self unexplained. Rather than showing how selves fit into the world, it fails to place our best account of experience onto the map. Explanation on this model is either the reduction of experience to impersonal terms, or its elimination, never its accommodation.
Thus, our intellectual culture is shaped by the crossfire between naturalistic ontology and lived phenomenology. We seem forced to choose between the two, since the conceptual apparatus of modern science precludes in principle the inclusion of any phenomenological terms as explanatory principles. Following such phenomenologists as the later Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, and Heidegger, Taylor argues that it is the lifeworld (nature as lived, as the correlate and background of our experience), rather than the scientist’s abstract, impersonal picture of nature, that provides the proper subject matter for any viable philosophical anthropology.
Perhaps the most inspiring thing about this book is that it provides a kind of blueprint for the self-knowledge process. It maps out the kinds of conceptual resources we'd need to have at our disposal in order to come to know ourselves. What surprised me was finding out just how shallow my own understanding of what self-knowledge involves had been. I had always thought, perhaps under the influence of our psychologistic culture, that to know myself was just to survey my own internal states, to consider their origin in my past experiences, and then to coax this disjointed flux of impressions into some kind of coherent narrative pattern. It turns out that narratives of experience are a core part of self-knowledge, but that this psychologistic, subjectivistic view is myopic. It misses the larger (historical, cultural, and ultimately, ontological) context within which we can construct and tell our life stories. Hence the title, “sources of the self.� It turns out that the “sources� of my identity lie outside of my individual life story. Moreover, Taylor makes the stronger claim that our subjective points of view fail to uncover our life stories.
Taylor argues that these “sources� that give content to our sense of ourselves have more to do with ontology and ethics than they have to do with psychology. The fact that psychological self-understanding presupposes coming to terms with history, ontology and ethics was the most revolutionary claim that this book brought home to me. To know myself is not just to cobble together the story of my personal life out of the fragments of my past that I have left before me in the present. Rather, it is to learn relate my own personal story to the larger (historical and philosophical) narrative of the collective creation/discovery of sources of meaning according to which we have learned to give shape to our experience. Since I make my story about myself using borrowed materials - materials shaped by those who came before - I cannot know myself without engaging with the historical question of where these materials came from, as well as the philosophical question of what grounds them, and of how each relates me to the world.
Taylor argues that in order to fully know ourselves, we must take up this much larger perspective on our lives. We must place our personal stories on this larger map of possible positions in relation to “constitutive goods� that our culture has learned to recognize. Whether the source of our identity is the value of nature as an immanent ground of meaning (Romantic pantheism), the spiritual value of an interior grasp of being (post-Augustinian Christianity), the respect for human rights (Enlightenment humanism), the notion of science as an instrument of control (post-Baconian philosophy of science), the moral value of work (the Puritanical tradition), the value of individual difference and thus of aesthetic expression as an epistemic instrument (Romanticism again), autonomy and freedom (Kant), or the value of radical questioning (post-Nietzschean thought), we cannot know ourselves until we interrogate the value that organizes our life stories by asking of it both the historical question (how has it come about as a way of orienting human experience in relation to the world?) and the ontological question (how does it relate us to the world?) Ultimately, to understand any value is to see it as one branch on the larger tree that represents the various shapes a human life can take in its striving to meaningfully relate itself to the world.
Taylor shows that we give shape to our experience, as selves, by relating our movement in life in reference to stable value loci: aspects of being that we take as intrinsically valuable, despite our subjective preferences. They give content to our experience. We figure out “how we are doing� or “who we are becoming� at any time in our lives by measuring our distance from the value that we recognize as binding on us. This is how we judge whether we are missing out on life, or whether we are on the path to becoming more real by more fully engaging with the world around us in the kinds of activities that generate (rather than reduce) meaning. Subjective preference presupposes this objective discrimination of being as a bearer of values at certain points. That is, we only subjectively prefer certain things because we first judged some aspect of being as intrinsically valuable.
Because people live by processing being into value and meaning, meanings and values are the central explananda of our ontology. Thus, our ontology must not just explain what grounds the theoretical truths of science and mathematics. Most of us know that by now (except for some die-hard global antirealists). Rather, Taylor argues that we have an additional explanatory task: we must also explain what grounds the meanings and values without which we cannot function as agents, and without which we cannot make sense of experience as we cannot help but live it. Most philosophers tend to shirk this additional explanatory task in their tendency to push more and more of their explanatory load onto science, but science, as an objective inquiry, just lacks the conceptual resources required for the task. Instead, Taylor recruits historical, generative phenomenology. This is the method by which we can come to appreciate how the current horizons of our experience are defined according to the symbolic, meaning-making tools we inherit from past generations.
Taylor makes the radical claim that existential knowing, i.e. the kind of knowledge through which we shape experience into a meaningful whole, must take priority in the order of explanation. This is because the self is never known first as a neutral object in a causal order of objects. It is first known through intimate involvement with its world in acts of meaning-making. As we saw above, self-knowledge involves value judgments. The world is first known as the support of those value judgments. It does seem intuitively true that we encounter the world first as a companion to our projects, and not merely as an object or instrument to be abused at our whim. We recognize that value judgment works by directly relating us to the intrinsic features of objects when we are awed by the power of a natural scene, say a stream rolling off a mossy cliff into the darkness of the forest undergrowth. In the creation of meaning and value, I conspire with the moss heap.
As we go about our lives, we reason in practice by presupposing that the world is a continuum punctuated by centers of value. We cannot but do so, even when our best theories tell us otherwise. Taylor follows Husserl, Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger in proposing that it is only through abstraction from this primordial situation of encounter and relatedness that we get the notion of the world as a theoretical, scientific system. Since we cannot place ourselves or the meanings without which we cannot get by in practice on that theoretical map, and since even card-carrying eliminativists end up presupposing meanings and values in order to reason about their lives in practice, we are behooved to explain what we cannot eliminate. If it is ineliminable, as is shown by the fact that it is presupposed by every naturalistic ethical theory that attempts to eliminate it, then we can infer that the lifeworld has ontological priority.
Regardless of what our theories state, we cannot help but experience the world as a bearer of values. Insisting on an unaccommodating stance towards experience, as many naturalists have tended to do, leads to an unbridgeable divide between theory and experience, between theoretical/scientific knowing and existential knowing. This divide makes dialogue between the two impossible. This is a problem because practical reason, unlike scientific reasoning, is synoptic and concerns itself with the shape of our life as a whole. As such, it presupposes a unity between theory and practice, between science and experience, that naturalism as currently stated, renders unattainable. That our best theoretical thinking cannot inform our life practices just means that people must seek guidance in making meaning where it’s still offered: e.g., wishy-washy supermarket new ageism, fundamentalism, or, perhaps, the desperate turn to totalitarian solutions that nihilistic times see.
Overall, Taylor’s work is essential reading not just for those interested in moral philosophy, but also for anyone interested in philosophy of mind and phenomenology, showing, as it does, the larger significance of current debates regarding the status of experience in the study of mind. He shows that the challenge of explaining mind, as a capacity to engage with being as meaning and value, imposes an entirely different model of explanation on us. He offers his philosophy as an exercise in the recovery of meanings “suppressed� by the standard ontology we all pay lip service to. His philosophy is also an invitation to stop trying to explain away practical, existential knowledge, and to instead start looking for an explanation of it.
His work also redefines what self-knowledge means for us in our current cultural predicament. Self-knowledge, in our post-systematic age in which a comprehensive picture of the world seems to no longer be forthcoming, involves going through the fragments of old ontologies and trying to put them together onto some kind of coherent map. This is what Taylor attempts to do for us. I suspect that anyone reading this will find somewhere here a startlingly accurate description of the goods by which they give shape to their day-to-day experience. As such, I'd recommend it to anyone as a kind of field guide to the self-knowledge process. He models the kind of reflection without which no education is complete.
I am left wondering in the end what a cross-cultural map of constitutive goods would look like. It seems to me that we cannot fully know ourselves without restating the problem from that more comprehensive perspective. The fact that doing so is inconceivable to us just shows what a parochial state of philosophical development we’re still at.
Taylor locates the problem of self-knowledge at the heart of our naturalistic culture. He shows how the naturalistic paradigm we inherit from modern science operates with an impoverished theory of human nature that fails to do justice to our experience. In his view, the reigning picture of nature provided by contemporary science, in allowing no place for nature as a bearer of meanings and values, leaves no place for experience, since experience just is the disclosure of being as meaning and value. As a result, the one thing conspicuously missing from current efforts to attain a scientific theory of everything is ourselves, as experiencing, meaning-disclosing agents. We cannot know ourselves by locating ourselves in the system of the world that current naturalism represents, with its tendency to eliminate the terms in which we understand our experience. If we could boil down this book to a basic insight, it is that the self is a moral subject before it is a natural object, and that current naturalism fails to offer us a paradigm by which to conceive the subject.
In this work, Taylor strives to show how many of our current problems in moral philosophy and philosophy of mind stem from the principled blindness that naturalistic presuppositions impose on us. In his view, these presuppositions lead to an impoverishing of meaning, to a loss of our ability to give content to the central metaphysical concepts that in the past have helped us interpret our experience and characterize it as a systematic whole. Taylor shows how naturalism leaves us with incoherent accounts of ourselves that often implicitly presuppose the richer phenomenological and ontological terms that they attempt to explain away (chief among which are those terms by which we conceive the subject as meaning-making agent and the world as a ground of valuation). He proposes his work as a “recovery of meanings� and as a reconstitution of those experiential phenomena that, being presupposed by naturalistic accounts, cannot be explained by them. Overall, I think that Taylor persuasively shows that in order to attain any account of self that can ground moral philosophy, we must recognize that the goal of explanation still is to “save the phenomena� in their coherence and meaningfulness.
Taylor shows how modern naturalism leaves us with an alienated subject and an objectified nature. A stark divide grows between the two which gives rise to the specter of nihilism. Reasoning becomes an empty formal procedure aiming at the control of nature. Reason can no longer acquire content through an experiential engagement with nature in which a meaning is born that temporarily unites subject and object in a single project. Scientific reason benefits from this state of affairs because a disengaged subject better achieves the objectification of phenomena required to control them. However, Taylor shows that the consequences for moral philosophy, for philosophy of mind, for philosophical anthropology, and for our culture generally, are nothing short of disastrous. The “acosmic subject� this naturalist paradigm foists on us, as Merleau-Ponty had previously argued, cannot be the subject that shapes meanings through her experience of the world. One could see Taylor's work as an effort to recover something like the premodern cosmic subject, but within a thoroughly modern framework.
In the wake of modern naturalism, meaning itself becomes problematic for us. Philosophy today must begin with the problem of meaning, of accounting for its possibility in a natural world that precludes all emergence of meaning. In particular, meaning becomes problematic when we find ourselves outside any taken-for-granted shared world-picture. In Taylor’s eyes, the crucial philosophical problem of our day stems from the gaping divide that remains between our scientifically-informed picture of nature and our best account of our experience. Taylor argues that naturalism, in failing to give a place to values in nature, thereby fails to account for selves, since selves just are an orientation to being perceived as a value (or "constitutive good," in his terminology). Naturalist ontology has two options: either it eliminates values by defining them out of existence as meaningless (some form of positivism), or it reduces value-talk to talk about contingent facts about psychological states or sociological factors. But then, Taylor points out, values become relative to either personal or group preference. Because naturalism insists on the mind-dependence of values, it leads either to relativism, or to outright nihilism. So much for being able to say to the Nazi that his genocidal views are objectively wrong, despite his culture's defining it as a good! To escape this predicament, we must construct an ontology that allows us to conceive of values as grounded in being itself, rather than its being contingent on conscious states.
Taylor offers some persuasive, transcendental arguments that show that current naturalists operate with an incoherent concept of self. Since value judgment is a part of what it is to be a functioning agent, any theory that denies the features of value judgments (objectivity being one of them) is incoherent. Time and again he shows how naturalist ontology, when consistently pursued in the ethical domain, leads to what he calls “practical self-contradictions� - i.e. it leads us to presuppose in practice terms the existence and meaningfulness of which the explicit theory denies. Interestingly, he criticizes both Kantians and consequentialists on this score. He shows how both presuppose a richer reserve of objective, mind-independent values than their explicit theories allow for in order to escape relativism.
By refusing to recognize a robust place for values in the natural world, naturalism leads to an impoverishment of our available means to make sense of our experience. Naturalist ontology, by leaving us with a "cramped and truncated view of morality," leads to a similarly cramped and truncated view of selves. Ultimately, naturalist ontology, as it stands, leaves the self unexplained. Rather than showing how selves fit into the world, it fails to place our best account of experience onto the map. Explanation on this model is either the reduction of experience to impersonal terms, or its elimination, never its accommodation.
Thus, our intellectual culture is shaped by the crossfire between naturalistic ontology and lived phenomenology. We seem forced to choose between the two, since the conceptual apparatus of modern science precludes in principle the inclusion of any phenomenological terms as explanatory principles. Following such phenomenologists as the later Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, and Heidegger, Taylor argues that it is the lifeworld (nature as lived, as the correlate and background of our experience), rather than the scientist’s abstract, impersonal picture of nature, that provides the proper subject matter for any viable philosophical anthropology.
Perhaps the most inspiring thing about this book is that it provides a kind of blueprint for the self-knowledge process. It maps out the kinds of conceptual resources we'd need to have at our disposal in order to come to know ourselves. What surprised me was finding out just how shallow my own understanding of what self-knowledge involves had been. I had always thought, perhaps under the influence of our psychologistic culture, that to know myself was just to survey my own internal states, to consider their origin in my past experiences, and then to coax this disjointed flux of impressions into some kind of coherent narrative pattern. It turns out that narratives of experience are a core part of self-knowledge, but that this psychologistic, subjectivistic view is myopic. It misses the larger (historical, cultural, and ultimately, ontological) context within which we can construct and tell our life stories. Hence the title, “sources of the self.� It turns out that the “sources� of my identity lie outside of my individual life story. Moreover, Taylor makes the stronger claim that our subjective points of view fail to uncover our life stories.
Taylor argues that these “sources� that give content to our sense of ourselves have more to do with ontology and ethics than they have to do with psychology. The fact that psychological self-understanding presupposes coming to terms with history, ontology and ethics was the most revolutionary claim that this book brought home to me. To know myself is not just to cobble together the story of my personal life out of the fragments of my past that I have left before me in the present. Rather, it is to learn relate my own personal story to the larger (historical and philosophical) narrative of the collective creation/discovery of sources of meaning according to which we have learned to give shape to our experience. Since I make my story about myself using borrowed materials - materials shaped by those who came before - I cannot know myself without engaging with the historical question of where these materials came from, as well as the philosophical question of what grounds them, and of how each relates me to the world.
Taylor argues that in order to fully know ourselves, we must take up this much larger perspective on our lives. We must place our personal stories on this larger map of possible positions in relation to “constitutive goods� that our culture has learned to recognize. Whether the source of our identity is the value of nature as an immanent ground of meaning (Romantic pantheism), the spiritual value of an interior grasp of being (post-Augustinian Christianity), the respect for human rights (Enlightenment humanism), the notion of science as an instrument of control (post-Baconian philosophy of science), the moral value of work (the Puritanical tradition), the value of individual difference and thus of aesthetic expression as an epistemic instrument (Romanticism again), autonomy and freedom (Kant), or the value of radical questioning (post-Nietzschean thought), we cannot know ourselves until we interrogate the value that organizes our life stories by asking of it both the historical question (how has it come about as a way of orienting human experience in relation to the world?) and the ontological question (how does it relate us to the world?) Ultimately, to understand any value is to see it as one branch on the larger tree that represents the various shapes a human life can take in its striving to meaningfully relate itself to the world.
Taylor shows that we give shape to our experience, as selves, by relating our movement in life in reference to stable value loci: aspects of being that we take as intrinsically valuable, despite our subjective preferences. They give content to our experience. We figure out “how we are doing� or “who we are becoming� at any time in our lives by measuring our distance from the value that we recognize as binding on us. This is how we judge whether we are missing out on life, or whether we are on the path to becoming more real by more fully engaging with the world around us in the kinds of activities that generate (rather than reduce) meaning. Subjective preference presupposes this objective discrimination of being as a bearer of values at certain points. That is, we only subjectively prefer certain things because we first judged some aspect of being as intrinsically valuable.
Because people live by processing being into value and meaning, meanings and values are the central explananda of our ontology. Thus, our ontology must not just explain what grounds the theoretical truths of science and mathematics. Most of us know that by now (except for some die-hard global antirealists). Rather, Taylor argues that we have an additional explanatory task: we must also explain what grounds the meanings and values without which we cannot function as agents, and without which we cannot make sense of experience as we cannot help but live it. Most philosophers tend to shirk this additional explanatory task in their tendency to push more and more of their explanatory load onto science, but science, as an objective inquiry, just lacks the conceptual resources required for the task. Instead, Taylor recruits historical, generative phenomenology. This is the method by which we can come to appreciate how the current horizons of our experience are defined according to the symbolic, meaning-making tools we inherit from past generations.
Taylor makes the radical claim that existential knowing, i.e. the kind of knowledge through which we shape experience into a meaningful whole, must take priority in the order of explanation. This is because the self is never known first as a neutral object in a causal order of objects. It is first known through intimate involvement with its world in acts of meaning-making. As we saw above, self-knowledge involves value judgments. The world is first known as the support of those value judgments. It does seem intuitively true that we encounter the world first as a companion to our projects, and not merely as an object or instrument to be abused at our whim. We recognize that value judgment works by directly relating us to the intrinsic features of objects when we are awed by the power of a natural scene, say a stream rolling off a mossy cliff into the darkness of the forest undergrowth. In the creation of meaning and value, I conspire with the moss heap.
As we go about our lives, we reason in practice by presupposing that the world is a continuum punctuated by centers of value. We cannot but do so, even when our best theories tell us otherwise. Taylor follows Husserl, Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger in proposing that it is only through abstraction from this primordial situation of encounter and relatedness that we get the notion of the world as a theoretical, scientific system. Since we cannot place ourselves or the meanings without which we cannot get by in practice on that theoretical map, and since even card-carrying eliminativists end up presupposing meanings and values in order to reason about their lives in practice, we are behooved to explain what we cannot eliminate. If it is ineliminable, as is shown by the fact that it is presupposed by every naturalistic ethical theory that attempts to eliminate it, then we can infer that the lifeworld has ontological priority.
Regardless of what our theories state, we cannot help but experience the world as a bearer of values. Insisting on an unaccommodating stance towards experience, as many naturalists have tended to do, leads to an unbridgeable divide between theory and experience, between theoretical/scientific knowing and existential knowing. This divide makes dialogue between the two impossible. This is a problem because practical reason, unlike scientific reasoning, is synoptic and concerns itself with the shape of our life as a whole. As such, it presupposes a unity between theory and practice, between science and experience, that naturalism as currently stated, renders unattainable. That our best theoretical thinking cannot inform our life practices just means that people must seek guidance in making meaning where it’s still offered: e.g., wishy-washy supermarket new ageism, fundamentalism, or, perhaps, the desperate turn to totalitarian solutions that nihilistic times see.
Overall, Taylor’s work is essential reading not just for those interested in moral philosophy, but also for anyone interested in philosophy of mind and phenomenology, showing, as it does, the larger significance of current debates regarding the status of experience in the study of mind. He shows that the challenge of explaining mind, as a capacity to engage with being as meaning and value, imposes an entirely different model of explanation on us. He offers his philosophy as an exercise in the recovery of meanings “suppressed� by the standard ontology we all pay lip service to. His philosophy is also an invitation to stop trying to explain away practical, existential knowledge, and to instead start looking for an explanation of it.
His work also redefines what self-knowledge means for us in our current cultural predicament. Self-knowledge, in our post-systematic age in which a comprehensive picture of the world seems to no longer be forthcoming, involves going through the fragments of old ontologies and trying to put them together onto some kind of coherent map. This is what Taylor attempts to do for us. I suspect that anyone reading this will find somewhere here a startlingly accurate description of the goods by which they give shape to their day-to-day experience. As such, I'd recommend it to anyone as a kind of field guide to the self-knowledge process. He models the kind of reflection without which no education is complete.
I am left wondering in the end what a cross-cultural map of constitutive goods would look like. It seems to me that we cannot fully know ourselves without restating the problem from that more comprehensive perspective. The fact that doing so is inconceivable to us just shows what a parochial state of philosophical development we’re still at.
March 21, 2021
This big fat book undertakes to explore the evolution of "selfhood" or "identity" -- as it's been known from ancient to recent times. The evidence is drawn mainly from philosophers, theologian-philosophers, and then poets or novelists. The thinkers Taylor cites are almost all Western and almost entirely male. Actually, I don't think he cites a single woman. So it's more accurate to call this a history of the Western male self, as described by the 0.1% most thoughtful, articulate, or verbose of the lot.
Overall it's intellectual and rather dry, but still surprisingly dramatic in showing how our sense of identity has changed over time. The goal of the self has shifted, from seeking to follow externally defined standards or to rise above a lower state, to discovering and following a higher good within, to formulating and testing principles of action, and fast forward to our modern juggling act where personal uniqueness, universal principle, disinterested objectivity, following your heart, maximizing utility, and demanding freedom all contend in our culture war.
Taylor treats "identity" as mainly a matter of morality. We are what we feel is good or right. Identity is what we stand for, what we judge ourselves by, and an "identity crisis" is when we don't know what we value anymore. Taylor's history is the story of changes in what we see as good, who it is good for, and who defines that. Evil is a "wrong opinion" about what is good, and "right strives with right." In general, Taylor sees evolution in progress. For example, we now think about morality less in terms of retribution for wrongs, and more in terms of minimizing suffering. Although our culture wars rage on, we grow a bit less blind to the perils of making one ideal our only crusade: "... following one good to the end may be catastrophic, not because it isn't good, but because there are others which can't be sacrificed without evil" (p. 503).
Overall it's intellectual and rather dry, but still surprisingly dramatic in showing how our sense of identity has changed over time. The goal of the self has shifted, from seeking to follow externally defined standards or to rise above a lower state, to discovering and following a higher good within, to formulating and testing principles of action, and fast forward to our modern juggling act where personal uniqueness, universal principle, disinterested objectivity, following your heart, maximizing utility, and demanding freedom all contend in our culture war.
Taylor treats "identity" as mainly a matter of morality. We are what we feel is good or right. Identity is what we stand for, what we judge ourselves by, and an "identity crisis" is when we don't know what we value anymore. Taylor's history is the story of changes in what we see as good, who it is good for, and who defines that. Evil is a "wrong opinion" about what is good, and "right strives with right." In general, Taylor sees evolution in progress. For example, we now think about morality less in terms of retribution for wrongs, and more in terms of minimizing suffering. Although our culture wars rage on, we grow a bit less blind to the perils of making one ideal our only crusade: "... following one good to the end may be catastrophic, not because it isn't good, but because there are others which can't be sacrificed without evil" (p. 503).
March 29, 2010
I just finished this magnificent book this week.
Although it took me a couple of years to read because of my schedule, it completely rearranged my mental furniture. Not many books can do that - for anyone! At least for anyone my age. Haha.
In any case, Taylor examines the history of ideas and the sources for our sense of who it is that we are. He finds these sources in a variety of places, and the problem is that we sometimes view the contemporary sources to be in conflict. However, he believes that our sense of ourselves is actually constituted by many of these seemingly conflicting sources.
Thus, disengaged reason (which helps with science and philosophy) and expressive self-fulfillment (as you might think of in Romanticism and then psychology/self-help stuff) work together to help us create our notions of ourselves.
We also have many notions and influences from the people Taylor admits are our contemporaries - the Victorians. Ouch! Yet, we continue to rejoice in their notions of universal benevolence and justice.
Meanwhile, Protestant notions about the importance of how we do things - the beauty of everyday life - is more important to us as a whole than the aristocratic warrior culture it left behind.
This is an amazing book! While I dispute that the era of the aristocrat warrior mentality is over, I do agree that Taylor's ultimate conclusion - that we create/adjust to the culture our notion of what is good and create, within that structure, a narrative about how we reach closer to that good, is a redemptive view.
Oh, and finally, Taylor predicted any number of contemporary controversies, from neo-conservatives (their sympathies are 'narrow,' he says) to the blatantly incorrect stories that are necessary to create a sense of nationalism - as we see with Scalia.
Stunning.
Although it took me a couple of years to read because of my schedule, it completely rearranged my mental furniture. Not many books can do that - for anyone! At least for anyone my age. Haha.
In any case, Taylor examines the history of ideas and the sources for our sense of who it is that we are. He finds these sources in a variety of places, and the problem is that we sometimes view the contemporary sources to be in conflict. However, he believes that our sense of ourselves is actually constituted by many of these seemingly conflicting sources.
Thus, disengaged reason (which helps with science and philosophy) and expressive self-fulfillment (as you might think of in Romanticism and then psychology/self-help stuff) work together to help us create our notions of ourselves.
We also have many notions and influences from the people Taylor admits are our contemporaries - the Victorians. Ouch! Yet, we continue to rejoice in their notions of universal benevolence and justice.
Meanwhile, Protestant notions about the importance of how we do things - the beauty of everyday life - is more important to us as a whole than the aristocratic warrior culture it left behind.
This is an amazing book! While I dispute that the era of the aristocrat warrior mentality is over, I do agree that Taylor's ultimate conclusion - that we create/adjust to the culture our notion of what is good and create, within that structure, a narrative about how we reach closer to that good, is a redemptive view.
Oh, and finally, Taylor predicted any number of contemporary controversies, from neo-conservatives (their sympathies are 'narrow,' he says) to the blatantly incorrect stories that are necessary to create a sense of nationalism - as we see with Scalia.
Stunning.
April 4, 2025
Charles Taylor's Sources Of The Self
The Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor has written two extended studies of what many people describe as modernity. The more recent of these books, "A Secular Age" (2007) examines the ways in which modern life became increasingly secularized or "disenchanted". Taylor in that book offered a long historical and analytical discussion of how people had, over centuries, tended to move away from a religious, transcendental outlook on life. Taylor received the Templeton Prize for this impressive study.
Nearly 20 years earlier, Taylor wrote the book I am reviewing here, "Sources of the Self" (1989). This book is, if anything, more difficult to read than its successor. The book addresses the same complex of questions as does "The Secular Age", but from the other end. Rather than focusing on God and secularization, the book describes "the making of the modern identity" -- concepts of human selfhood and human personality that have helped made modern life what it is.
Both books show a great deal of erudition and take an approach both analytical and historical. As Taylor says, in order to know where we are, we have to know where we have been. In "The Secular Age", Taylor identifies himself at the outset as a practicing, believing Catholic. In the earlier book, he keeps his hand somewhat more hidden. His own commitments might even be missed under a casual reading of an extraordinarily dense book.
Although the book wanders and lacks strong focus, Taylor's primary interest lies in showing what gives meaning to life. In the opening Part of this five-part book, Taylor explores the relationship between views of personal identity and views of the good. This section of the book is essential to understanding the long historical discussion that forms the remaining four Parts of the study. Taylor attacks various forms of ethical and metaphysical theories that deny the intelligibility of talking about "the good" or "the good life" for human beings. The denial frequently is based on various naturalistic or relativistic theories about the nature of the good which, Taylor claims, are in turn based upon a fractured approach to human knowing that he will describe in detail in the historical sections of the book. Human life, for Taylor, differs from other forms of life or types of things in that only human life possesses dignity. To have dignity, choices, and projects is what it is to be human and a self. By cutting the self off artificially from these sources is to narrow unduly the inquiry into self and goodness at the outset. Further, Taylor claims that thinkers who do so fequently are inconsistent and unaware of their own motivations. There goal is to cut off certain claims to transcendence or elitism as goals of life in favor of exhalting values such as ordinary life -- meaningful work, sexuality and sensuality, family, benevolence towards others, and broad equality. But, Taylor argues, their metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical commitments are insufficient to support the views of the good that these thinkers themselves tacitly hold.
Following this long opening part, Taylor seemingly changes track. He discusses various historical concepts of the self that, Taylor claims, illustrate the many strands and tensions that inform the ways people today try to understand themselves. Thus, in part 2, Taylor begins with the ancients, proceeds through Augustine, and winds up with Descartes and Locke in showing how a disengaged, inward concept of the self developed at the outset of the modern scientific age. In part 3, Taylor discusses how "ordinary life" as I summarized it above, became the source of meaning for life; and he equates this with the shift from traditional theism to deism and ultimately to secularity. Taylor then describes the development of romanticism and nature as a response to instrumentalism and disengagement. Romanticism tended to lead to "expressivism" -- the value of individual creativity and subjectivity with the threat to "objective" understanding of good and value. The final part of the book, which covers a great deal with a broad brush begins with the Victorians and proceeds to show how modern thinkers, writers and artists reacted against both instrumentalism and expressivism.
Taylor's analysis is dense, careful and difficult. The degree of learning is extraordinary, but it frequently gets in the way of understandability. It helped me to think of the book as something of a combination of Hegel and Heidegger. Very simply, the approach is Hegelian because Taylor tries to show how various concepts of the self developed historically, with each pointing out and attempting to address some perceived deficiency in an earlier approach. The approach is also Hegelian because Taylor is reluctant to reject any approach out of hand. The varying approaches he describes are not so much wrong as partial and incomplete. Taylor's goal is to take what he finds valuable in each of them and work to a synthesis rather than in advocating for one or the other approach. This seems to me to owe much to Hegel. The Heideggerian component of the book consists, I think, in Taylor's discomfort with a move towards objectification -- or separating the "self" from "nature". This truncation is, for Taylor, the result of a too narrow focus on epistemology. Taylor would begin instead with what Heidegger would call being-in-the-world and take life experience, before reduction to a scientific approach, as the source for understanding the self. This approach, Taylor suggests, would allow for the sense of the dignity of human life, and the plurality of goods that constitute a good life. Behind the carefully restrained and analytical prose, Taylor offers a strong critique of over-intellectualization. Among the many other writers that Taylor discusses, he seems also to have a great affinity for Dostoevsky and Nietzsche.
This is a long, difficult, provocative,and sometimes diffuse work. Readers who have struggled with questions of meaning and value and who have a strong background in philosophy and literature will find this study, and Taylor's "The Secular Age" challenging and rewarding.
Robin Friedman
The Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor has written two extended studies of what many people describe as modernity. The more recent of these books, "A Secular Age" (2007) examines the ways in which modern life became increasingly secularized or "disenchanted". Taylor in that book offered a long historical and analytical discussion of how people had, over centuries, tended to move away from a religious, transcendental outlook on life. Taylor received the Templeton Prize for this impressive study.
Nearly 20 years earlier, Taylor wrote the book I am reviewing here, "Sources of the Self" (1989). This book is, if anything, more difficult to read than its successor. The book addresses the same complex of questions as does "The Secular Age", but from the other end. Rather than focusing on God and secularization, the book describes "the making of the modern identity" -- concepts of human selfhood and human personality that have helped made modern life what it is.
Both books show a great deal of erudition and take an approach both analytical and historical. As Taylor says, in order to know where we are, we have to know where we have been. In "The Secular Age", Taylor identifies himself at the outset as a practicing, believing Catholic. In the earlier book, he keeps his hand somewhat more hidden. His own commitments might even be missed under a casual reading of an extraordinarily dense book.
Although the book wanders and lacks strong focus, Taylor's primary interest lies in showing what gives meaning to life. In the opening Part of this five-part book, Taylor explores the relationship between views of personal identity and views of the good. This section of the book is essential to understanding the long historical discussion that forms the remaining four Parts of the study. Taylor attacks various forms of ethical and metaphysical theories that deny the intelligibility of talking about "the good" or "the good life" for human beings. The denial frequently is based on various naturalistic or relativistic theories about the nature of the good which, Taylor claims, are in turn based upon a fractured approach to human knowing that he will describe in detail in the historical sections of the book. Human life, for Taylor, differs from other forms of life or types of things in that only human life possesses dignity. To have dignity, choices, and projects is what it is to be human and a self. By cutting the self off artificially from these sources is to narrow unduly the inquiry into self and goodness at the outset. Further, Taylor claims that thinkers who do so fequently are inconsistent and unaware of their own motivations. There goal is to cut off certain claims to transcendence or elitism as goals of life in favor of exhalting values such as ordinary life -- meaningful work, sexuality and sensuality, family, benevolence towards others, and broad equality. But, Taylor argues, their metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical commitments are insufficient to support the views of the good that these thinkers themselves tacitly hold.
Following this long opening part, Taylor seemingly changes track. He discusses various historical concepts of the self that, Taylor claims, illustrate the many strands and tensions that inform the ways people today try to understand themselves. Thus, in part 2, Taylor begins with the ancients, proceeds through Augustine, and winds up with Descartes and Locke in showing how a disengaged, inward concept of the self developed at the outset of the modern scientific age. In part 3, Taylor discusses how "ordinary life" as I summarized it above, became the source of meaning for life; and he equates this with the shift from traditional theism to deism and ultimately to secularity. Taylor then describes the development of romanticism and nature as a response to instrumentalism and disengagement. Romanticism tended to lead to "expressivism" -- the value of individual creativity and subjectivity with the threat to "objective" understanding of good and value. The final part of the book, which covers a great deal with a broad brush begins with the Victorians and proceeds to show how modern thinkers, writers and artists reacted against both instrumentalism and expressivism.
Taylor's analysis is dense, careful and difficult. The degree of learning is extraordinary, but it frequently gets in the way of understandability. It helped me to think of the book as something of a combination of Hegel and Heidegger. Very simply, the approach is Hegelian because Taylor tries to show how various concepts of the self developed historically, with each pointing out and attempting to address some perceived deficiency in an earlier approach. The approach is also Hegelian because Taylor is reluctant to reject any approach out of hand. The varying approaches he describes are not so much wrong as partial and incomplete. Taylor's goal is to take what he finds valuable in each of them and work to a synthesis rather than in advocating for one or the other approach. This seems to me to owe much to Hegel. The Heideggerian component of the book consists, I think, in Taylor's discomfort with a move towards objectification -- or separating the "self" from "nature". This truncation is, for Taylor, the result of a too narrow focus on epistemology. Taylor would begin instead with what Heidegger would call being-in-the-world and take life experience, before reduction to a scientific approach, as the source for understanding the self. This approach, Taylor suggests, would allow for the sense of the dignity of human life, and the plurality of goods that constitute a good life. Behind the carefully restrained and analytical prose, Taylor offers a strong critique of over-intellectualization. Among the many other writers that Taylor discusses, he seems also to have a great affinity for Dostoevsky and Nietzsche.
This is a long, difficult, provocative,and sometimes diffuse work. Readers who have struggled with questions of meaning and value and who have a strong background in philosophy and literature will find this study, and Taylor's "The Secular Age" challenging and rewarding.
Robin Friedman
August 8, 2012
Don't tell my dissertation advisers that I hadn't read this before I finished- they might revoke my degree. On the other hand, they might say "well, you don't really need to read this unless you're a convinced naturalist/procedural ethicist/purveyor of socio-biology. Which you're not." And this is the problem. Like reading Wittgenstein when you're not already an analytic philosopher, this is only going to blow your mind if you haven't read any 20th century philosophy and are a little uncomfortable with your Lockean beliefs. If you're comfortable with them, you'll shrug and say who gives a toss.
The first 4 chapters look at late 20th century anglo-philosophical ethics, basically, stuff that follows from utilitarianism, Rawls or Nozick. Oddly, it's much more interesting than the following 21 chapters. CT is better when he's engaging with arguments, rather than when he's laying out his tremendous analysis of the modern self over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, all in slightly different permutations, and all strictly obeying the rule of three. There are three characteristics of *everything*. He nearly slips up when counting the 'frontiers of modern ethical thought;' on page 317 he tells us there are two of them... by 319 he's come to his senses and added in a third. Phew! Close call. He then reverts, still on 319, back to the claim that there are two. Do we have an editor in the house?
Aside from being an execrable organizer of his own thought and a long-winded know-it-all, Taylor is quite readable. He thinks about important issues (e.g., just how important *is* the philosophical articulation of the self?) and is willing to take a stand or two: he rejects the twin ideas that we're contextless instrumental deciders, and that we're nothing. He's good on the importance of hermeneutics for understanding human life.
He's very bad, though, on separating his own axe-grinding from his historical work; although he claims to be giving us an interpretation of the modern self, there's an awful lot of judgement against rationalism, 'subjectivism,' and so on. This wouldn't matter if he didn't conclude that knowing about these sources of the self can 'empower' us to 'live this identity more fully'. Since he's almost without exception described our identity as bad, why empower us?
His readings of modernist texts are terrible; often there's no sign that he's even read the poems he describes. The same goes for many of the thinkers he discusses, most notably Adorno. Taylor has clearly read Habermas *on* Adorno, but that's like reading Obama's ŷ review of Romney's book.
This all sounds bad, but chapters 1-4, 9, and 19-21 are well worth reading. Taylor's book is a cornerstone of much current philosophical thought, and deserves its reputation as a classic. But it needs an abridgement if people are going to keep reading it.
The first 4 chapters look at late 20th century anglo-philosophical ethics, basically, stuff that follows from utilitarianism, Rawls or Nozick. Oddly, it's much more interesting than the following 21 chapters. CT is better when he's engaging with arguments, rather than when he's laying out his tremendous analysis of the modern self over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, all in slightly different permutations, and all strictly obeying the rule of three. There are three characteristics of *everything*. He nearly slips up when counting the 'frontiers of modern ethical thought;' on page 317 he tells us there are two of them... by 319 he's come to his senses and added in a third. Phew! Close call. He then reverts, still on 319, back to the claim that there are two. Do we have an editor in the house?
Aside from being an execrable organizer of his own thought and a long-winded know-it-all, Taylor is quite readable. He thinks about important issues (e.g., just how important *is* the philosophical articulation of the self?) and is willing to take a stand or two: he rejects the twin ideas that we're contextless instrumental deciders, and that we're nothing. He's good on the importance of hermeneutics for understanding human life.
He's very bad, though, on separating his own axe-grinding from his historical work; although he claims to be giving us an interpretation of the modern self, there's an awful lot of judgement against rationalism, 'subjectivism,' and so on. This wouldn't matter if he didn't conclude that knowing about these sources of the self can 'empower' us to 'live this identity more fully'. Since he's almost without exception described our identity as bad, why empower us?
His readings of modernist texts are terrible; often there's no sign that he's even read the poems he describes. The same goes for many of the thinkers he discusses, most notably Adorno. Taylor has clearly read Habermas *on* Adorno, but that's like reading Obama's ŷ review of Romney's book.
This all sounds bad, but chapters 1-4, 9, and 19-21 are well worth reading. Taylor's book is a cornerstone of much current philosophical thought, and deserves its reputation as a classic. But it needs an abridgement if people are going to keep reading it.
July 23, 2012
I pretended to understand this book in grad school to impress a few professors whom I respected. Frankly, the book confused me and I could not track the author's thoughts or grasp any of the concepts. I keep the book on my office shelf in hopes that someone recognizes it and assumes that I am an intellectual. Three stars because smart people seem to love this book.
August 2, 2020
Taylor does something radical and scandalous. He exposes that what we take as an inevitable, natural conception of the self (and the ethical framework of respect and justice that follows from it) is in fact historically contingent. This conception is a product of cultural, political, and religious events over the history of western civilization. In this huge 600 page book, Taylor presents these events, from ancient Greece, to Christianity, the Enlightenment, Romanticism, and modernism. We do not only get to understand the details of the major philosophical theories produced at each stage, but we also get to see how these theories build upon one another, and have led to the basic concepts (and philosophical, ethical problems that depend on those concepts) that we all take for granted today.
Here's a brief description of the self and ethical framework that we, today, take for granted. We are each private selves, who determine and impose values onto an inherently valueless, mechanistic universe. This transcendent role of the self implies that the self is autonomous. So morality is a matter of respecting this autonomy of every individual. Liberty - or allowing different individuals to pursue their own ends as long as they do not infringe on one another's autonomy - gains central ethical importance. We think that people's everyday lives are the locus of fulfillment and morality; careers, parenting, friendships, and so on really matter. The alleviation of suffering for anyone is an ethical imperative. Moreover, we are conflicted over whether the path to ethical living is one of honing our rational faculties and ensuring our impulses are disciplined by them; vs. one of listening to our emotions and being in tune with nature.
Taylor starts the story of the developments that have led to these conceptions of self and ethics at Plato. This philosopher held that the self is defined by three faculties: reason, appetite/emotion, and volition. Ethical living is a matter of having reason control and govern the other two faculties. Reason is defined as the capacity to access and grasp Ideas, transcendent, perfect forms of all things that account for all sensible particulars in our world. So the good, ethical way of life is ultimately grounded in these Ideas, found in a realm beyond us. At this stage, with Plato, there is no inner, private conception of the self: the sources of moral living are found outside of our bodies and in this transcendent realm.
St. Augustine took this Platonic picture and combined it with Christian doctrine. According to Augustine, God is the ultimate source of morality, rather than Platonic Ideas. Like Plato, Augustine thought that we can grasp this moral source only through reason. Augustine especially emphasized the necessity to introspect, evaluate one's memories, and make confessions, in order to exercise reason and connect with God. This is the first step of the process of the "inwardization" of the western conception of the self: the sources of moral living are found "within" ourselves, as we must examine our inner experiences, rather than directly grasp Ideas.
Descartes is another major figure in this historical development. He started with Platonic and Augustinian ideas, and reconciled them with Newtonian physics, newly established at his time. According to this physics, the universe is purely mechanistic. There is no teleology, no inherent value, purpose, or meaning to the external world. Rather, any value or meaning is a product of our inner subjective workings. We form representations of this world, and can arrange these representations in ways as to amount to accurate knowledge of this world. On this picture, ethical living is no longer a matter of attuning ourselves to the cosmos, whether this is understood as consisting of Platonic ideas or God. Rather, ethical living requires that we've constructed our representations in accordance to the demands of inner reason. External things in the world can never serve as standards of rationality of ethics; it is only things found within us, rational demands, that can serve as such standards.
Taylor walks through numerous other thinks who preceded and marked the Enlightenment, including Locke and Montaigne, and also theologians of new branches of Protestant Christianity. While promoters of science and atheism, on the one hand, and Puritans and Calvinists, on the other hand, seem to be worlds apart - Taylor shows they are united on one regard. The conceptual developments in both strands involved overthrowing older hierarchies, which made only people from certain ranks in life worthy, and only certain sacred activities as worthy. From this leveled playing field, both strands affirmed that all people matter; and all activities in life, even mundane household activities, are of ethical import. Taylor calls this the elevation of ordinary life; it is central to our contemporary moral thinking. This is another step in the "inwardization" process of our conception of the self, in that now the mundane various experiences we have are worthy of recognition and value.
Taylor covers a series of Romanticist philosophers and artists. They rebelled against Enlightenment rationality, the idea that disengaged reason, which steps back from the world, examines it as a totally separate object from our subjectivity, and takes it for its instrumental value (how the object can serve our personal ends and interests). Romanticism instead emphasized the importance of imagination and spontaneous feeling. They held that there is an inner voice within each person, which is the voice of uninhibited nature. We are not cut off from an objective world, which stands to serve our interests, as the Enlightenment held, but rather are a continuation or part of the world. This is another step of "inwardization"; our experiences are expressions of this inner voice, which is deep and unknowable in itself. Goodness is found in trying to know this voice.
My only complaint with this book is that its ambitiousness, covering so many ideas and philosophers, makes it difficult to follow the main points, or to see how all the details presented support these points. I lost track of how ethical theories changed in tandem with changes in the conception of the self. I wasn't always sure how certain details amount to a change in this conception of the self. Regardless, this was a very worthwhile read. My favorite chapters were 6, 7, and 8 (covering Plato, Augustine and Descartes); and then 20, 21, and 24 (covering romanticism and the connections modernist art has with that).
I'd highly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to step out of the box of western thought and be able to see its deepest assumptions. This is a prerequisite for being able to critically evaluate the western tradition. Taylor will help you do this, especially with regard to western ethics.
Here's a brief description of the self and ethical framework that we, today, take for granted. We are each private selves, who determine and impose values onto an inherently valueless, mechanistic universe. This transcendent role of the self implies that the self is autonomous. So morality is a matter of respecting this autonomy of every individual. Liberty - or allowing different individuals to pursue their own ends as long as they do not infringe on one another's autonomy - gains central ethical importance. We think that people's everyday lives are the locus of fulfillment and morality; careers, parenting, friendships, and so on really matter. The alleviation of suffering for anyone is an ethical imperative. Moreover, we are conflicted over whether the path to ethical living is one of honing our rational faculties and ensuring our impulses are disciplined by them; vs. one of listening to our emotions and being in tune with nature.
Taylor starts the story of the developments that have led to these conceptions of self and ethics at Plato. This philosopher held that the self is defined by three faculties: reason, appetite/emotion, and volition. Ethical living is a matter of having reason control and govern the other two faculties. Reason is defined as the capacity to access and grasp Ideas, transcendent, perfect forms of all things that account for all sensible particulars in our world. So the good, ethical way of life is ultimately grounded in these Ideas, found in a realm beyond us. At this stage, with Plato, there is no inner, private conception of the self: the sources of moral living are found outside of our bodies and in this transcendent realm.
St. Augustine took this Platonic picture and combined it with Christian doctrine. According to Augustine, God is the ultimate source of morality, rather than Platonic Ideas. Like Plato, Augustine thought that we can grasp this moral source only through reason. Augustine especially emphasized the necessity to introspect, evaluate one's memories, and make confessions, in order to exercise reason and connect with God. This is the first step of the process of the "inwardization" of the western conception of the self: the sources of moral living are found "within" ourselves, as we must examine our inner experiences, rather than directly grasp Ideas.
Descartes is another major figure in this historical development. He started with Platonic and Augustinian ideas, and reconciled them with Newtonian physics, newly established at his time. According to this physics, the universe is purely mechanistic. There is no teleology, no inherent value, purpose, or meaning to the external world. Rather, any value or meaning is a product of our inner subjective workings. We form representations of this world, and can arrange these representations in ways as to amount to accurate knowledge of this world. On this picture, ethical living is no longer a matter of attuning ourselves to the cosmos, whether this is understood as consisting of Platonic ideas or God. Rather, ethical living requires that we've constructed our representations in accordance to the demands of inner reason. External things in the world can never serve as standards of rationality of ethics; it is only things found within us, rational demands, that can serve as such standards.
Taylor walks through numerous other thinks who preceded and marked the Enlightenment, including Locke and Montaigne, and also theologians of new branches of Protestant Christianity. While promoters of science and atheism, on the one hand, and Puritans and Calvinists, on the other hand, seem to be worlds apart - Taylor shows they are united on one regard. The conceptual developments in both strands involved overthrowing older hierarchies, which made only people from certain ranks in life worthy, and only certain sacred activities as worthy. From this leveled playing field, both strands affirmed that all people matter; and all activities in life, even mundane household activities, are of ethical import. Taylor calls this the elevation of ordinary life; it is central to our contemporary moral thinking. This is another step in the "inwardization" process of our conception of the self, in that now the mundane various experiences we have are worthy of recognition and value.
Taylor covers a series of Romanticist philosophers and artists. They rebelled against Enlightenment rationality, the idea that disengaged reason, which steps back from the world, examines it as a totally separate object from our subjectivity, and takes it for its instrumental value (how the object can serve our personal ends and interests). Romanticism instead emphasized the importance of imagination and spontaneous feeling. They held that there is an inner voice within each person, which is the voice of uninhibited nature. We are not cut off from an objective world, which stands to serve our interests, as the Enlightenment held, but rather are a continuation or part of the world. This is another step of "inwardization"; our experiences are expressions of this inner voice, which is deep and unknowable in itself. Goodness is found in trying to know this voice.
My only complaint with this book is that its ambitiousness, covering so many ideas and philosophers, makes it difficult to follow the main points, or to see how all the details presented support these points. I lost track of how ethical theories changed in tandem with changes in the conception of the self. I wasn't always sure how certain details amount to a change in this conception of the self. Regardless, this was a very worthwhile read. My favorite chapters were 6, 7, and 8 (covering Plato, Augustine and Descartes); and then 20, 21, and 24 (covering romanticism and the connections modernist art has with that).
I'd highly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to step out of the box of western thought and be able to see its deepest assumptions. This is a prerequisite for being able to critically evaluate the western tradition. Taylor will help you do this, especially with regard to western ethics.
January 7, 2017
I wish I had read this book twenty years ago.
In the face of a certain philosophical inarticulacy among 20th century participants in modern Western civilization (which is more or less everyone on the planet to some degree), about why we care so much about, for example, the right to direct one's own life, about the dignity of ordinary people, about the reduction of suffering, Taylor sets out on a voyage of exploration of the historic intellectual and cultural currents which have combined in creating our modern sense of the self as one possessing depths that demand respect. In so doing, Taylor seeks to expose our continuing dependence on empowering "moral sources"--strong qualitative distinctions about better and worse ways to be and to act--even though much modern moral philosophy denies the legitimacy of such sources in favor of various procedural ethics. There are no undisputed or indisputable moral sources for us, but Taylor clarifies the issues on which our disputes converge, including the role of instrumental reason, the place of sources, and whether morality itself is good for human beings.
It's hard to say anything clear and right about this book in so short a space. I learned a lot.
In the face of a certain philosophical inarticulacy among 20th century participants in modern Western civilization (which is more or less everyone on the planet to some degree), about why we care so much about, for example, the right to direct one's own life, about the dignity of ordinary people, about the reduction of suffering, Taylor sets out on a voyage of exploration of the historic intellectual and cultural currents which have combined in creating our modern sense of the self as one possessing depths that demand respect. In so doing, Taylor seeks to expose our continuing dependence on empowering "moral sources"--strong qualitative distinctions about better and worse ways to be and to act--even though much modern moral philosophy denies the legitimacy of such sources in favor of various procedural ethics. There are no undisputed or indisputable moral sources for us, but Taylor clarifies the issues on which our disputes converge, including the role of instrumental reason, the place of sources, and whether morality itself is good for human beings.
It's hard to say anything clear and right about this book in so short a space. I learned a lot.
April 20, 2022
Este es un libro hacia el que hay que dirigirse con paciencia. Son 700 páginas con interlineado denso de historia de la filosofía occidental. Le he dedicado unos dos meses intensos de lectura comprometida (no he estado leyendo otros libros en paralelo) y para mí ha merecido la pena. Ha sido una lectura exigente, pero muy enriquecedora. ¿Por qué? Bien, lo que más he apreciado de esta obra es la claridad con la que se realiza un trazado por la historia de la filosofía occidental moderna muy capaz de transmitir los vínculos, continuidades y discontinuidades en temas y enfoques de las doctrinas de distintos pensadores (no sólo filósofos, puesto que incluye también a artistas, cosa que he apreciado mucho). De esta manera, las ideas en el tiempo cobran una lógica, se vuelve evidente cómo igual que no hay ningún pensamiento que surja 'ex nihilo', tampoco hay pensamientos repetidos, sino sólo temas o conceptos retomados, pero nunca desde el mismo enfoque. Dotar un hilo de este tipo a la historia ha aportado una gran frescura a los conocimientos de historia de la filosofía que ya tenía (lo que me recuerda que he de señalar que no creo que este libro deba leerse sin tener al menos unas nociones mínimas sobre el canon filosófico occidental), profundizándolos, relacionándolos entre sí, aportándoles nuevos enfoques.
Aunque pueda parecer, por el título, que en este libro se va a hablar sobre el problema del yo, en realidad se abordan muchísimas más cuestiones: la concepción de la naturaleza, de la razón, de Dios, del arte, de la condición humana, del bien... Todo ello en relación con la tesis del autor según la cual los seres humanos no podemos hacernos una idea del mundo sin "valoraciones fuertes" (distinciones cualitativas), o lo que es lo mismo, sin una "topografía moral": igual que estar en el mundo significa estar en algún lugar y por eso nos dotamos de puntos de orientación (arriba, delante, al norte, cerca, etc.) con los que orientarnos, partiendo de algún sistema de referencia, no podemos describir ni dar un sentido a lo que nos rodea sin un marco de referencia con un criterio de "bien" a partir del cual ubicarnos y ubicar al resto de entidades. Por esa razón, la moral para el autor va más allá de cuestiones cómo qué es una buena acción y qué es ser bueno y entra en el terreno de preguntas como qué es una vida plena y qué la caracteriza. De ahí que la cuestión del yo y de la identidad sea una cuestión moral estrechamente vinculada a la visión que se tiene del resto del cosmos.
La ideología del autor se hace notar. En mi opinión, tiene una concepción liberal (y, por tanto, androcéntrica) del sujeto moderno, de ahí que no sólo no se mencione a una sola autora en 700 páginas de texto más otras 100 de anotaciones y referencias. Y el problema no es tanto que no las mencione, que también, sino sobre todo que no aborde en ningún momento la cuestión de género. Tampoco la cuestión racial, cosa grave, teniendo en cuenta los orígenes de la modernidad occidental y la vinculación entre la construcción del sujeto liberal y la construcción de las teorías racistas y raciológicas. Yo no creo que el sujeto moderno pueda entenderse sin un enfoque de género y decolonial. Charles Taylor parece realmente erudito por la cantidad de referencias que hace, pero son más que notables estas ausencias, que hacen que su libro sea deshonestamente parcial, y digo deshonestamente porque pese a que menciona y reconoce otras limitaciones de su libro, respecto a estas lagunas no dice nada de nada. Con todo, el libro me parece valioso por otras razones y existen otros textos que abordan estas cuestiones y hacen críticas extensivas de la noción liberal de sujeto, así que no me enrollaré más en esta reseña: recomiendo este libro a personas con paciencia pero con interés en profundizar en las raíces teóricas que vinculan a distintas ideas del yo y del mundo características del pensamiento occidental.
Aunque pueda parecer, por el título, que en este libro se va a hablar sobre el problema del yo, en realidad se abordan muchísimas más cuestiones: la concepción de la naturaleza, de la razón, de Dios, del arte, de la condición humana, del bien... Todo ello en relación con la tesis del autor según la cual los seres humanos no podemos hacernos una idea del mundo sin "valoraciones fuertes" (distinciones cualitativas), o lo que es lo mismo, sin una "topografía moral": igual que estar en el mundo significa estar en algún lugar y por eso nos dotamos de puntos de orientación (arriba, delante, al norte, cerca, etc.) con los que orientarnos, partiendo de algún sistema de referencia, no podemos describir ni dar un sentido a lo que nos rodea sin un marco de referencia con un criterio de "bien" a partir del cual ubicarnos y ubicar al resto de entidades. Por esa razón, la moral para el autor va más allá de cuestiones cómo qué es una buena acción y qué es ser bueno y entra en el terreno de preguntas como qué es una vida plena y qué la caracteriza. De ahí que la cuestión del yo y de la identidad sea una cuestión moral estrechamente vinculada a la visión que se tiene del resto del cosmos.
La ideología del autor se hace notar. En mi opinión, tiene una concepción liberal (y, por tanto, androcéntrica) del sujeto moderno, de ahí que no sólo no se mencione a una sola autora en 700 páginas de texto más otras 100 de anotaciones y referencias. Y el problema no es tanto que no las mencione, que también, sino sobre todo que no aborde en ningún momento la cuestión de género. Tampoco la cuestión racial, cosa grave, teniendo en cuenta los orígenes de la modernidad occidental y la vinculación entre la construcción del sujeto liberal y la construcción de las teorías racistas y raciológicas. Yo no creo que el sujeto moderno pueda entenderse sin un enfoque de género y decolonial. Charles Taylor parece realmente erudito por la cantidad de referencias que hace, pero son más que notables estas ausencias, que hacen que su libro sea deshonestamente parcial, y digo deshonestamente porque pese a que menciona y reconoce otras limitaciones de su libro, respecto a estas lagunas no dice nada de nada. Con todo, el libro me parece valioso por otras razones y existen otros textos que abordan estas cuestiones y hacen críticas extensivas de la noción liberal de sujeto, así que no me enrollaré más en esta reseña: recomiendo este libro a personas con paciencia pero con interés en profundizar en las raíces teóricas que vinculan a distintas ideas del yo y del mundo características del pensamiento occidental.
May 2, 2022
Do I get an award for finishing this?
A high-five?
No, the book was its own reward (just very long, and I’m not sure I understood *all* of it.) Taylor is an absolute genius and his humility puts him up there among the top philosophers of the last few centuries. Can I say that?? I mean, he finds the holes in everyone since the Protestant Reformation and brings together the best of instrumental reason and expressivist humanism and everything in between. A marvelous history of moral philosophy that sheds light on the strange morality of modern culture.
I will read it again someday when I can treat each page with the time and focus it deserves. Really marvelous.
A high-five?
No, the book was its own reward (just very long, and I’m not sure I understood *all* of it.) Taylor is an absolute genius and his humility puts him up there among the top philosophers of the last few centuries. Can I say that?? I mean, he finds the holes in everyone since the Protestant Reformation and brings together the best of instrumental reason and expressivist humanism and everything in between. A marvelous history of moral philosophy that sheds light on the strange morality of modern culture.
I will read it again someday when I can treat each page with the time and focus it deserves. Really marvelous.
August 10, 2022
حسناً
قبل أن تقرأ هذا الكتاب لابد أن تتصور عدداً من النقاط
الكتاب يبحث في ماهية للمنابع الذاتية المكونة لأخلاق زماننا عبر استقراء دقيق لتاريخ الفكر البشري والفلسفة
المؤلف ينحى لمنحى ديني ولكنه موضوعي، ويسعى إلى استعراض المقولات والتقريرات المهمة التي شكلت الوعي الإنساني وبعد انتهائه من المراحل الزمنية الأولى للبشرية يستعرض مصادر منابع الذات من العصور الوسطى مروراً بعصر التنوير والنهضة إلى العصر الحديث عبر الاقتباس والتحليل والنقد، ولا يخفى الجهد الشخصي الذي يتبين في رأي المؤلف تشارلز تايلر والذي أبان عن حصيلة معرفية موسوعية وذات ثراء شاسع
لا أنكر أن الكتاب صعب، وقد عانيته لما يقارب عشرة أيام دون أن أخرج باستيعاب مرضٍ له، غير أن ما جنيته من فوائد مدونه على صفحته الأولى يجعلني أشعر بأن الكتاب كان جديراً بالتعب الذي عانيته في قراءته، وقد تحمست بشكل أكبر لكتابه التالي: عصر علماني
ختاماً: هذا كتاب يصنف في نظري ضمن كتب تاريخ وعلم الفلسفة والأخلاق وليس من الكتب الاجتماعية أو الثقافية، فلا تتعجل باقتنائه والبداية به قبل اليقين بأنك تحتاجه وأنه سيفيدك
قبل أن تقرأ هذا الكتاب لابد أن تتصور عدداً من النقاط
الكتاب يبحث في ماهية للمنابع الذاتية المكونة لأخلاق زماننا عبر استقراء دقيق لتاريخ الفكر البشري والفلسفة
المؤلف ينحى لمنحى ديني ولكنه موضوعي، ويسعى إلى استعراض المقولات والتقريرات المهمة التي شكلت الوعي الإنساني وبعد انتهائه من المراحل الزمنية الأولى للبشرية يستعرض مصادر منابع الذات من العصور الوسطى مروراً بعصر التنوير والنهضة إلى العصر الحديث عبر الاقتباس والتحليل والنقد، ولا يخفى الجهد الشخصي الذي يتبين في رأي المؤلف تشارلز تايلر والذي أبان عن حصيلة معرفية موسوعية وذات ثراء شاسع
لا أنكر أن الكتاب صعب، وقد عانيته لما يقارب عشرة أيام دون أن أخرج باستيعاب مرضٍ له، غير أن ما جنيته من فوائد مدونه على صفحته الأولى يجعلني أشعر بأن الكتاب كان جديراً بالتعب الذي عانيته في قراءته، وقد تحمست بشكل أكبر لكتابه التالي: عصر علماني
ختاماً: هذا كتاب يصنف في نظري ضمن كتب تاريخ وعلم الفلسفة والأخلاق وليس من الكتب الاجتماعية أو الثقافية، فلا تتعجل باقتنائه والبداية به قبل اليقين بأنك تحتاجه وأنه سيفيدك
August 6, 2021
Who Should Read This Book � Readers who desire to deepen their understanding of how the identify of modern people formed through the shifts in philosophy over the last few centuries.
What is the Big Takeaway � The ancient world bequeathed to the West the idea of the good as objectively out there beyond us. Slowly over the course of the development of modern philosophy, though really rooted in the Reformation and even earlier Christian thought, there was a turn to looking for this good within. At the same time, the idea of one “the good� is questioned though such a good is necessary for the moral order to make sense.
And a Quote � “So why worry that we disagree on the reasons, as long as we’re united around the norms? It’s not the disagreement which is the problem. Rather the issue is what sources can support our far-reaching moral commitments to benevolence and justice. . . High standards need strong sources� (525-526)
I feel so inadequate in even attempting to review a book like this, though a brief perusal of other reviews on here (ŷ) demonstrates I am not the only one. Honestly, just writing “what is the big takeaway� above took a good bit of time and stress. What if I got something wrong? How do I boil down a 500+ page tome the covers so much ground into one paragraph?
Let me start with this: this book is a feast. I had read Taylor’s A Secular Age probably about a decade ago and I want to read it again, just on the assumption that I am a bit wiser and more well-read and can appreciate it even more. Before going back to that, I wanted to read this, considered Taylor’s other masterpiece. I was not disappointed. Its a fat book that is not necessarily easy to follow and a basic understanding of history of philosophy is certainly helpful. When I say its hard to follow, I mean there is so much going on and Taylor does not hold your hand. He brings up numerous points, meanders through his reasoning, or refers to points from earlier in the book in such a way that demand you pay attention. There are no helpful headings to easily subdivide the argument for you! Its not a popular level book, its an academic work. And it is a feast � as you immerse yourself in the story Taylor is telling you see so much even if you miss one or two things along the way.
Along those lines, it is a story. In laying out the plan of the book, Taylor says those who enjoy history might want to skip part one and those who prefer philosophy may only want to read part one. I read both, but I certainly enjoyed the history part better. Part one is about the possibility of articulating moral goods. Beginning in part two, Taylor tells the story of how western culture shifted in understanding the good, what it means to be human, how to discover the good, and much more. And again, its a feast of a story filled with detail. Its a challenge, but worth it if you press on through.
These last two paragraphs almost feel like an apologetic and encouragement � you ought to read the book and you can! I said, I feel inadequate to review this book. I am writing for people mostly like me. I’m not a professional philosopher or historian. Instead, I work in Christian ministry and enjoy reading history and philosophy. I am interested in the ways our culture has changed in the last 500 years. Taylor is one of the best to read on this and I think, as challenging as his work may seem, it is greatly beneficial for pastors and others to read.
This book was published in 1989 and as I read I saw, or honestly maybe just imagined, echoes of some of those early Christian apologetics books I read in my college years. I suspect those apologists had read Taylor and were delighted to find such an intellectual on their side. Yet those apologetic books often sacrificed nuance to make their arguments appear more cut-and-dried. Perhaps we can forgive them, because distilling the arguments of a book like this to a popular level 200 page book would be a challenge (though James KA Smith did it well with A Secular Age). My point here is simply that the Christian church may be better off if more pastors wrestled with the depth and nuance of Taylor.
I say that because as critical as Taylor may be of the twists and turns of modernity, specifically pointing out how we need some conception of higher good in order to articulate a moral system, he also recognizes the goods and the benefits of the philosophers of modernity. This was my big takeaway from the book, as mentioned above � over the course of time the place of the good shifted inward. Rather than finding it out there somewhere in God or the realm of ideas, we learned to look inward. We even, as time went on, questioned whether there was a good. But we need some conception of the good (which, btw, reminds me of the work of Alasdair MacIntyre), we need to be able to articulate it to make sense of it.
In other words, the modern world still is rooted on some conception of the good, or goods. Taylor speaks of ideas such as benevolence and justice. Where the good is located and how we know what it is has changed, but there is still some good. The criticism is that the modern world seems unable to articulate what the good is. Once the good can no longer simply be taken for granted, can we trust it is there? Or once we cannot reason to good or experience nature as good, what basis is there for it?
Beyond that, there is so much more here. Part of me wants to page through all 500 pages. I know I underlined a lot and added all sorts of stars, arrows and other notes so I can return to this book. Taylor talks about the elevation of ordinary life, Enlightenment use of disengaged reason and Romanticism’s return to engaging with nature. All I’ll say is if you want a feast of a book, if you want to learn a whole lot about how we got to our conception of who we are today, give it a try.
What is the Big Takeaway � The ancient world bequeathed to the West the idea of the good as objectively out there beyond us. Slowly over the course of the development of modern philosophy, though really rooted in the Reformation and even earlier Christian thought, there was a turn to looking for this good within. At the same time, the idea of one “the good� is questioned though such a good is necessary for the moral order to make sense.
And a Quote � “So why worry that we disagree on the reasons, as long as we’re united around the norms? It’s not the disagreement which is the problem. Rather the issue is what sources can support our far-reaching moral commitments to benevolence and justice. . . High standards need strong sources� (525-526)
I feel so inadequate in even attempting to review a book like this, though a brief perusal of other reviews on here (ŷ) demonstrates I am not the only one. Honestly, just writing “what is the big takeaway� above took a good bit of time and stress. What if I got something wrong? How do I boil down a 500+ page tome the covers so much ground into one paragraph?
Let me start with this: this book is a feast. I had read Taylor’s A Secular Age probably about a decade ago and I want to read it again, just on the assumption that I am a bit wiser and more well-read and can appreciate it even more. Before going back to that, I wanted to read this, considered Taylor’s other masterpiece. I was not disappointed. Its a fat book that is not necessarily easy to follow and a basic understanding of history of philosophy is certainly helpful. When I say its hard to follow, I mean there is so much going on and Taylor does not hold your hand. He brings up numerous points, meanders through his reasoning, or refers to points from earlier in the book in such a way that demand you pay attention. There are no helpful headings to easily subdivide the argument for you! Its not a popular level book, its an academic work. And it is a feast � as you immerse yourself in the story Taylor is telling you see so much even if you miss one or two things along the way.
Along those lines, it is a story. In laying out the plan of the book, Taylor says those who enjoy history might want to skip part one and those who prefer philosophy may only want to read part one. I read both, but I certainly enjoyed the history part better. Part one is about the possibility of articulating moral goods. Beginning in part two, Taylor tells the story of how western culture shifted in understanding the good, what it means to be human, how to discover the good, and much more. And again, its a feast of a story filled with detail. Its a challenge, but worth it if you press on through.
These last two paragraphs almost feel like an apologetic and encouragement � you ought to read the book and you can! I said, I feel inadequate to review this book. I am writing for people mostly like me. I’m not a professional philosopher or historian. Instead, I work in Christian ministry and enjoy reading history and philosophy. I am interested in the ways our culture has changed in the last 500 years. Taylor is one of the best to read on this and I think, as challenging as his work may seem, it is greatly beneficial for pastors and others to read.
This book was published in 1989 and as I read I saw, or honestly maybe just imagined, echoes of some of those early Christian apologetics books I read in my college years. I suspect those apologists had read Taylor and were delighted to find such an intellectual on their side. Yet those apologetic books often sacrificed nuance to make their arguments appear more cut-and-dried. Perhaps we can forgive them, because distilling the arguments of a book like this to a popular level 200 page book would be a challenge (though James KA Smith did it well with A Secular Age). My point here is simply that the Christian church may be better off if more pastors wrestled with the depth and nuance of Taylor.
I say that because as critical as Taylor may be of the twists and turns of modernity, specifically pointing out how we need some conception of higher good in order to articulate a moral system, he also recognizes the goods and the benefits of the philosophers of modernity. This was my big takeaway from the book, as mentioned above � over the course of time the place of the good shifted inward. Rather than finding it out there somewhere in God or the realm of ideas, we learned to look inward. We even, as time went on, questioned whether there was a good. But we need some conception of the good (which, btw, reminds me of the work of Alasdair MacIntyre), we need to be able to articulate it to make sense of it.
In other words, the modern world still is rooted on some conception of the good, or goods. Taylor speaks of ideas such as benevolence and justice. Where the good is located and how we know what it is has changed, but there is still some good. The criticism is that the modern world seems unable to articulate what the good is. Once the good can no longer simply be taken for granted, can we trust it is there? Or once we cannot reason to good or experience nature as good, what basis is there for it?
Beyond that, there is so much more here. Part of me wants to page through all 500 pages. I know I underlined a lot and added all sorts of stars, arrows and other notes so I can return to this book. Taylor talks about the elevation of ordinary life, Enlightenment use of disengaged reason and Romanticism’s return to engaging with nature. All I’ll say is if you want a feast of a book, if you want to learn a whole lot about how we got to our conception of who we are today, give it a try.
January 25, 2018
In the absence of context, tradition and culture the modern self is impenetrable. Taylor provides the history necessary in order to understand how modern people (or at least up to the year 1989) got their meaning and purpose.
The story presented is not an easy one to follow. A lot of the names he talks about are just names to me (Rilke, Ardono, D. H. Lawrence, Eliot, Yeats, and hundreds of more, I’m very ignorant on literature and poetry). I’m almost certain I could pick a paragraph at random from this book and write a page or two beyond what he doesn’t tell the reader because he expects the reader to be familiar with the context and relations inherent with the story. Each paragraph is that compact and dense and challenging. I don’t mind challenging books and this book was challenging.
The author builds the foundation for his modern self affirmation through ordinary life thesis by dissecting the Enlightenment, the Romantics, and the modernist and contrasting how they thought about themselves with how we think about ourselves. He makes Schopenhauer a critical character by dividing time by pre and post Schopenhauer.
The ‘Futurist�, the pre-runners to Mussolini and the fascist always provide insights for me into Trump and how he likes to manipulate his base through hate and state worship through patriotism and unmerited pride possessed by individuals who make up his hating the others choir (his 48%). The Futurists were mentioned about 8 times throughout the book as the author focuses on the modernist writers and artists. “The world is subsumed under the will� with supreme glory coming from sacrifice to the state through complete obedience to the one person who is the only one can solve their problems (at least according to the narcissistic leader) caused by the other who are not in tuned to their patriotic belief system based on unwarranted pride. Reality based narratives are antithetical to them even to the point of believing ‘climate change is a Chinese hoax� or ‘Russia did not try to influence the election�. Faith in the words of the leader and what Fox News is telling them that day trumps reality to the point that 'secret societies' exist within the FBI or 'deep state' is real.
This book read like ‘The Age of Atheist� (which incidentally and oddly got renamed as ‘The Age of Nothing�, I guess the word ‘atheist� in the title turns people off), except in the case of this book, ‘Sources� the author is not really just dropping names he knows their context and how they fit together in telling the story for the modern self.
I got the feeling that the ‘Culture and the Death of God� author was heavily influenced by this book. He did quote Taylor and his ultimate theme, ‘religion never goes away because culture always remains� overlaps with what Taylor is trying to get at with in this book. But, to be clear, Taylor in this book sees Leo Strauss and the Frankfurt School for the dead end esoteric system they really are and ‘Culture� did not. (I need to explain, I used the word ‘esoteric� because that is a big belief for Strauss and his accolades. I meant it as an insult. They are the original ‘neo-Cons� incidentally). Yes, overall ‘Sources� gets detailed and expects readers to see connections through context. The footnotes hid many of the best connections.
Joyce and Proust are also presented and dissected within this story. I mention them in particular because of something ‘Culture� had said. ‘The modernist such as Joyce and Proust use time and remembrance as a reflection for Grace�, this book ‘Secular� brings in similar sentiments in his weaving of his story (I believe). Surprisingly (for me) Taylor embraces a modern subjectivist outlook for society as it is filtered through the lenses of its historical development.
He points out in the book that there is no more vacuous statement then along the lines that ‘our values� give us our meaning. Our values (our goods) have to have meaning for us as individuals and don’t pop up out of the vacuum. We are not atoms and our meaning and understanding comes about through the whole. We live such that ‘parents without partners� have no relevance for the individual after the partner is found (he gave that example in the book).
I didn’t always agree with the theme or the story he was trying to tell, but I enjoy reading a book that assumed the reader had read other books, and was familiar with history and philosophy from the Enlightenment to today (1989).
The story presented is not an easy one to follow. A lot of the names he talks about are just names to me (Rilke, Ardono, D. H. Lawrence, Eliot, Yeats, and hundreds of more, I’m very ignorant on literature and poetry). I’m almost certain I could pick a paragraph at random from this book and write a page or two beyond what he doesn’t tell the reader because he expects the reader to be familiar with the context and relations inherent with the story. Each paragraph is that compact and dense and challenging. I don’t mind challenging books and this book was challenging.
The author builds the foundation for his modern self affirmation through ordinary life thesis by dissecting the Enlightenment, the Romantics, and the modernist and contrasting how they thought about themselves with how we think about ourselves. He makes Schopenhauer a critical character by dividing time by pre and post Schopenhauer.
The ‘Futurist�, the pre-runners to Mussolini and the fascist always provide insights for me into Trump and how he likes to manipulate his base through hate and state worship through patriotism and unmerited pride possessed by individuals who make up his hating the others choir (his 48%). The Futurists were mentioned about 8 times throughout the book as the author focuses on the modernist writers and artists. “The world is subsumed under the will� with supreme glory coming from sacrifice to the state through complete obedience to the one person who is the only one can solve their problems (at least according to the narcissistic leader) caused by the other who are not in tuned to their patriotic belief system based on unwarranted pride. Reality based narratives are antithetical to them even to the point of believing ‘climate change is a Chinese hoax� or ‘Russia did not try to influence the election�. Faith in the words of the leader and what Fox News is telling them that day trumps reality to the point that 'secret societies' exist within the FBI or 'deep state' is real.
This book read like ‘The Age of Atheist� (which incidentally and oddly got renamed as ‘The Age of Nothing�, I guess the word ‘atheist� in the title turns people off), except in the case of this book, ‘Sources� the author is not really just dropping names he knows their context and how they fit together in telling the story for the modern self.
I got the feeling that the ‘Culture and the Death of God� author was heavily influenced by this book. He did quote Taylor and his ultimate theme, ‘religion never goes away because culture always remains� overlaps with what Taylor is trying to get at with in this book. But, to be clear, Taylor in this book sees Leo Strauss and the Frankfurt School for the dead end esoteric system they really are and ‘Culture� did not. (I need to explain, I used the word ‘esoteric� because that is a big belief for Strauss and his accolades. I meant it as an insult. They are the original ‘neo-Cons� incidentally). Yes, overall ‘Sources� gets detailed and expects readers to see connections through context. The footnotes hid many of the best connections.
Joyce and Proust are also presented and dissected within this story. I mention them in particular because of something ‘Culture� had said. ‘The modernist such as Joyce and Proust use time and remembrance as a reflection for Grace�, this book ‘Secular� brings in similar sentiments in his weaving of his story (I believe). Surprisingly (for me) Taylor embraces a modern subjectivist outlook for society as it is filtered through the lenses of its historical development.
He points out in the book that there is no more vacuous statement then along the lines that ‘our values� give us our meaning. Our values (our goods) have to have meaning for us as individuals and don’t pop up out of the vacuum. We are not atoms and our meaning and understanding comes about through the whole. We live such that ‘parents without partners� have no relevance for the individual after the partner is found (he gave that example in the book).
I didn’t always agree with the theme or the story he was trying to tell, but I enjoy reading a book that assumed the reader had read other books, and was familiar with history and philosophy from the Enlightenment to today (1989).
October 27, 2017
Taylor really lives up to the hype, although I must say as someone influenced by a lot of folks themselves influenced by Taylor, the book did feel like a bit of a slog at parts.
One of the basic theses is to affirm value pluralism, particularly values prone to conflicting with one another. But Taylor's contribution (in my estimation) is to bring the depth of intellectual genealogy to these values, or "moral sources." He paints a vivid picture of how these moral sources have evolved, and how they interact and borrow from one another, often implicitly and surreptitiously. I buy into this overall view, but I'm skeptical of the view Taylor never quite says but seems to imply, that there was some earlier time when actually living individuals had conflict-free moral sources (or moral sources with full buy-in).
Among the ancients, Taylor barely mentions Aristotle. I find this puzzling since his own approach seems broadly Aristotelian based on its contextual pluralism.
One of the basic theses is to affirm value pluralism, particularly values prone to conflicting with one another. But Taylor's contribution (in my estimation) is to bring the depth of intellectual genealogy to these values, or "moral sources." He paints a vivid picture of how these moral sources have evolved, and how they interact and borrow from one another, often implicitly and surreptitiously. I buy into this overall view, but I'm skeptical of the view Taylor never quite says but seems to imply, that there was some earlier time when actually living individuals had conflict-free moral sources (or moral sources with full buy-in).
Among the ancients, Taylor barely mentions Aristotle. I find this puzzling since his own approach seems broadly Aristotelian based on its contextual pluralism.
June 10, 2016
One of the deepest, most subtle books of philosophy and its history that I have ever read.
November 22, 2024
24 July 2024: Not reviewing yet - as I’ll probably be reading in again over next few weeks as part of a reading group. Plus I need time to reflect. But you can see from the dates that it took me a while to get through - so it was work! That’s not necessarily a bad thing but I wanted to be honest that I did not find it an easy read.
21 November 2024: a few more months to think about and explore this book, partially with the aid of a reading group, reading and discussing about 20 pages at a time.
What is this book? A history of ideas, a history of culture, a philosophy text, a personal viewpoint of the author? To some degree it is all of these.
It appears initially to be a fairly straightforward read. That impression is an Illusion. Taylor assumes a significant amount of background knowledge of key philosophers in the western canon, using and dissecting their ideas with little or no explanation of those ideas. The writing is much more relaxed in style than many philosophical texts, but it is hard work. Some chapters took me several attempts to read them before I grasped their meaning - and often only with aid of a reading group which included two academic philosophers.
The title of the book is a direct explanation of the contents. Why do we think of ourselves each as “selfs� and what do we mean by a “self�? Taylor shows that this was not always the way humanity viewed itself, and many perspectives and outlooks built on the idea of selfhood are constructs developed over the centuries. Some are relatively recent ideas.
I don’t think I agree with everything Taylor says, but even there I am not yet sure, as there is so much it will take me a while to process. But like the best pieces of thinking one does not have to agree to appreciate the quality of thinking of the author.
Not for everyone, but if you like an intellectual challenge, have some knowledge of thinkers like Plato, Descartes, Locke etc then worth a go. It is unapologetically a western philosophical history, but within those boundaries it is fairly broad.
(I should add my reading group was not just “westerners� and it benefited from that broader global perspective.
21 November 2024: a few more months to think about and explore this book, partially with the aid of a reading group, reading and discussing about 20 pages at a time.
What is this book? A history of ideas, a history of culture, a philosophy text, a personal viewpoint of the author? To some degree it is all of these.
It appears initially to be a fairly straightforward read. That impression is an Illusion. Taylor assumes a significant amount of background knowledge of key philosophers in the western canon, using and dissecting their ideas with little or no explanation of those ideas. The writing is much more relaxed in style than many philosophical texts, but it is hard work. Some chapters took me several attempts to read them before I grasped their meaning - and often only with aid of a reading group which included two academic philosophers.
The title of the book is a direct explanation of the contents. Why do we think of ourselves each as “selfs� and what do we mean by a “self�? Taylor shows that this was not always the way humanity viewed itself, and many perspectives and outlooks built on the idea of selfhood are constructs developed over the centuries. Some are relatively recent ideas.
I don’t think I agree with everything Taylor says, but even there I am not yet sure, as there is so much it will take me a while to process. But like the best pieces of thinking one does not have to agree to appreciate the quality of thinking of the author.
Not for everyone, but if you like an intellectual challenge, have some knowledge of thinkers like Plato, Descartes, Locke etc then worth a go. It is unapologetically a western philosophical history, but within those boundaries it is fairly broad.
(I should add my reading group was not just “westerners� and it benefited from that broader global perspective.
October 2, 2013
This is one of the most important books one can read on modern philosophy from a moderate Christian perspective. It is also readable. I highly recommend it.
August 27, 2020
لم اتجاوز صفحاته التسعين و أستطيع أن أقول بملأ فيهي ما هذا يا رجل !!
June 21, 2022
If I were a dictator, my most strictly enforced decree would be mandatory reading of Charles Taylor.
There's really no way to condense the content of this book into a (reasonably sized) review. But here's the best I can do:
Taylor argues (for the first 100 pages or so) that our notions of the self/identity are inextricable from notions of the good. Any and all variations of a naturalistic ontology/ethic which--to paint with broad brush--believes that notions of the good/value/right are simply psychological projections onto the world "out there," without any true grounding in reality "out there" is fundamentally mistaken. Our moral sense--our unavoidable commitments to some sorts of life goods--are best explained using spatial metaphors: no matter what you believe or say you believe about the world, you are a spatiotemporal being who moves up, down, right, and left through the world. It's inescapable. Our relation to the good, to reiterate, is analogous to that necessary (provided you have no profound injury to your spatial sense) component of our perceptions.
For the bulk of the rest of the book, Taylor takes you on a historical journey: starting with the Ancient Greeks, then Augustine (you love to see it), Descartes, Locke, Shaftesbury, Bentham, then (skipping quite a few) wrapping up with the modernist and post-modernist artistic and philosophical movements. The gist is this: in the ancient Western world, human identity was meant to mimic and harmonize with the cosmos. This is what undergirds, for example, Plato's Republic: Plato's view of the tripartite soul is supported and explained by his conception of the perfect city/Republic. The world is saturated with order and coherence--our task as rational humans is to strive to be like the world, in a sense.
Augustine totally assumes (I don't say "agrees" because it was never questioned and likely never rose to his conscious awareness) this "ontic logos." Except he believes that at the center of it all is God, specifically Jesus of Nazareth. And he pioneers an "inward turn" which he believes is necessary to reach God--we can't reach God "out there" just using reason, like Plato/Socrates (simply stated) believed. Rather, we reach God through looking into ourselves, seeing our insufficiencies and subsequent need for grace. This causes us to then look UP to God. But the inward turn is crucial.
This review is running long, so I'm going to hop skip and jump and do justice to basically no other players in the story :/. Descartes takes Augustine's turn and radicalizes it, disengaging and prioritizing reason from everything else which constitutes human personhood. Locke takes this even further: he further disengages reason and makes it THE thing about us humans, meaning all other aspects of our being are contingent and able to be molded by reason.
*HOP, SKIP, JUMP*
These developments kickstart the Enlightenment, which shoots off into every direction. The confluence of Enlightenment naturalism and (later) Romanticism is still happening in our day. To make 2500 years of complex history wayyyy too simple: people in the western world have moved from constituting the "self" by A) seeking to mimic/harmonize with an ontic logos to B) internalizing moral sources into the human subject and subjecting them to reason (which, when it happened with Descartes and co., was NOT "moral relativism") to C) multifarious attempts to harmonize reason and nature to D) finding ultimate value--satisfying the demands of our moral sources--in self-expression.
Read the book and you'll realize how badly I probably just butchered that. But I know I have this right: Taylor rejects any sort of atavism and resentment of our modern, secular predicament. He, as a communitarian Catholic, has many legitimate criticisms of many of the figures and their ideas he discusses in this book. He believes, rightly in my view, that we are left in a somewhat fraught position in the modern world with "life goods" (things we highly value: dignifying the ordinary, universal beneficence, reducing suffering, etc) which aren't properly supported with adequate moral sources. But rather than playing the all-too-typical card of condescendingly mocking secular people for works of charity even though their "worldview" can't provide a satisfying rationale for them, Taylor calls for us to continue the story. We need to speak openly and honestly about the goods we seek AND the moral sources from which we pull to support them. And that's the work of a democracy (not necessarily democracy, but it's the case throughout the western world). We need to heal this artificial division between "secular" and "sacred," NOT so either may impose upon the other, but so neither's moral sources are pre-emptively discounted.
P.S. If the division between "sacred" and "secular" interests you, Charles has another equally magnificent book written just for you: "A Secular Age." Read it.
There's really no way to condense the content of this book into a (reasonably sized) review. But here's the best I can do:
Taylor argues (for the first 100 pages or so) that our notions of the self/identity are inextricable from notions of the good. Any and all variations of a naturalistic ontology/ethic which--to paint with broad brush--believes that notions of the good/value/right are simply psychological projections onto the world "out there," without any true grounding in reality "out there" is fundamentally mistaken. Our moral sense--our unavoidable commitments to some sorts of life goods--are best explained using spatial metaphors: no matter what you believe or say you believe about the world, you are a spatiotemporal being who moves up, down, right, and left through the world. It's inescapable. Our relation to the good, to reiterate, is analogous to that necessary (provided you have no profound injury to your spatial sense) component of our perceptions.
For the bulk of the rest of the book, Taylor takes you on a historical journey: starting with the Ancient Greeks, then Augustine (you love to see it), Descartes, Locke, Shaftesbury, Bentham, then (skipping quite a few) wrapping up with the modernist and post-modernist artistic and philosophical movements. The gist is this: in the ancient Western world, human identity was meant to mimic and harmonize with the cosmos. This is what undergirds, for example, Plato's Republic: Plato's view of the tripartite soul is supported and explained by his conception of the perfect city/Republic. The world is saturated with order and coherence--our task as rational humans is to strive to be like the world, in a sense.
Augustine totally assumes (I don't say "agrees" because it was never questioned and likely never rose to his conscious awareness) this "ontic logos." Except he believes that at the center of it all is God, specifically Jesus of Nazareth. And he pioneers an "inward turn" which he believes is necessary to reach God--we can't reach God "out there" just using reason, like Plato/Socrates (simply stated) believed. Rather, we reach God through looking into ourselves, seeing our insufficiencies and subsequent need for grace. This causes us to then look UP to God. But the inward turn is crucial.
This review is running long, so I'm going to hop skip and jump and do justice to basically no other players in the story :/. Descartes takes Augustine's turn and radicalizes it, disengaging and prioritizing reason from everything else which constitutes human personhood. Locke takes this even further: he further disengages reason and makes it THE thing about us humans, meaning all other aspects of our being are contingent and able to be molded by reason.
*HOP, SKIP, JUMP*
These developments kickstart the Enlightenment, which shoots off into every direction. The confluence of Enlightenment naturalism and (later) Romanticism is still happening in our day. To make 2500 years of complex history wayyyy too simple: people in the western world have moved from constituting the "self" by A) seeking to mimic/harmonize with an ontic logos to B) internalizing moral sources into the human subject and subjecting them to reason (which, when it happened with Descartes and co., was NOT "moral relativism") to C) multifarious attempts to harmonize reason and nature to D) finding ultimate value--satisfying the demands of our moral sources--in self-expression.
Read the book and you'll realize how badly I probably just butchered that. But I know I have this right: Taylor rejects any sort of atavism and resentment of our modern, secular predicament. He, as a communitarian Catholic, has many legitimate criticisms of many of the figures and their ideas he discusses in this book. He believes, rightly in my view, that we are left in a somewhat fraught position in the modern world with "life goods" (things we highly value: dignifying the ordinary, universal beneficence, reducing suffering, etc) which aren't properly supported with adequate moral sources. But rather than playing the all-too-typical card of condescendingly mocking secular people for works of charity even though their "worldview" can't provide a satisfying rationale for them, Taylor calls for us to continue the story. We need to speak openly and honestly about the goods we seek AND the moral sources from which we pull to support them. And that's the work of a democracy (not necessarily democracy, but it's the case throughout the western world). We need to heal this artificial division between "secular" and "sacred," NOT so either may impose upon the other, but so neither's moral sources are pre-emptively discounted.
P.S. If the division between "sacred" and "secular" interests you, Charles has another equally magnificent book written just for you: "A Secular Age." Read it.
January 14, 2022
How do I review a book like this?
Sources of the Self traces the history of the Western conception of "Selfhood" ("Identity") from ancient to modern times (up to the 1980s). From the Greek turn inward to wisdom, the biblical turn toward inner devotional life, Augustine's emphasis on finding God within us, the Middle Ages' elaboration on moulding the will to God's, to the Reformation's emphasis on ordinary life ("vocation") and the need for personal commitment, to Rousseau's locating of "good" human nature within us, to the rise of naturalism which enables us to find our own moral sources without God, to Romanticism, to the rise of the novel, to Nietzsche's explanation of the consequences of atheism ("self-creation"), to industrial revolution's push of family to the realm of privacy, to Freud and psychology and critical theory and the Frankfurt School and the rise of atomism, individualism, consumerism, the sexual revolution, and finally the human potential movement ("self-esteem").
He defines the Modern Identity (Reiff's "Triumph of the Therapeutic" Bellah's "Expressive Individualism" MacIntyre's "Emotivism" Taylor's "Age of Authenticity" etc.) three ways:
� Inward: Only by searching my own thoughts and feelings can I know myself (thus I don't look outside to God or others)
� Ordinary: Instead of stretching to become like heroes or conform to traditions, I should embrace my own originality (thus I distrust hierarchy and institutions)
� Natural: My natural, liberated, self is good and trustworthy (thus Society's job is to embrace my natural authentic self)
BAM.
Could he be any more right-on?
But his greatest contribution is in the extended discussion about "sources." The reality is that all moderns live into and assume the same basic suppositions: dignity of the individual, freedom, justice, importance of consent, supremacy of inner life, etc. The question is "Where did we get the source for these ideas?" Taylor, in the last few pages, remarks that only the Christian vision of agape and grace has the unlimited sources required for such an Identity, and the sources to curb its abuses.
Not everyone should read this book. Incredibly long (I skimmed or skipped several sections) and very dry. But it makes great research, and makes you go "Oooohhhhhh."
Sources of the Self traces the history of the Western conception of "Selfhood" ("Identity") from ancient to modern times (up to the 1980s). From the Greek turn inward to wisdom, the biblical turn toward inner devotional life, Augustine's emphasis on finding God within us, the Middle Ages' elaboration on moulding the will to God's, to the Reformation's emphasis on ordinary life ("vocation") and the need for personal commitment, to Rousseau's locating of "good" human nature within us, to the rise of naturalism which enables us to find our own moral sources without God, to Romanticism, to the rise of the novel, to Nietzsche's explanation of the consequences of atheism ("self-creation"), to industrial revolution's push of family to the realm of privacy, to Freud and psychology and critical theory and the Frankfurt School and the rise of atomism, individualism, consumerism, the sexual revolution, and finally the human potential movement ("self-esteem").
He defines the Modern Identity (Reiff's "Triumph of the Therapeutic" Bellah's "Expressive Individualism" MacIntyre's "Emotivism" Taylor's "Age of Authenticity" etc.) three ways:
� Inward: Only by searching my own thoughts and feelings can I know myself (thus I don't look outside to God or others)
� Ordinary: Instead of stretching to become like heroes or conform to traditions, I should embrace my own originality (thus I distrust hierarchy and institutions)
� Natural: My natural, liberated, self is good and trustworthy (thus Society's job is to embrace my natural authentic self)
BAM.
Could he be any more right-on?
But his greatest contribution is in the extended discussion about "sources." The reality is that all moderns live into and assume the same basic suppositions: dignity of the individual, freedom, justice, importance of consent, supremacy of inner life, etc. The question is "Where did we get the source for these ideas?" Taylor, in the last few pages, remarks that only the Christian vision of agape and grace has the unlimited sources required for such an Identity, and the sources to curb its abuses.
Not everyone should read this book. Incredibly long (I skimmed or skipped several sections) and very dry. But it makes great research, and makes you go "Oooohhhhhh."
Read
May 22, 2023I *love* Charles Taylor. Love this book. It's a theory-of-everything kind of book, which is never going to work entirely (which I think he acknowledges), but what a rich set of ideas to work through and draw upon.
The Enlightenment section was mostly beyond me. I have very vague, cartoon-y background on Enlightenment thinkers and ideas, so it didn't do as much for me as most of the rest of the book. Because it's such a transitional and important piece of the argument, I feel like a really bad judge of the argument overall. But I really loved at the end seeing his New Left / Christian Socialist origins come through, and this is probably going to be an even more important book to me than *A Secular Age*.
The Enlightenment section was mostly beyond me. I have very vague, cartoon-y background on Enlightenment thinkers and ideas, so it didn't do as much for me as most of the rest of the book. Because it's such a transitional and important piece of the argument, I feel like a really bad judge of the argument overall. But I really loved at the end seeing his New Left / Christian Socialist origins come through, and this is probably going to be an even more important book to me than *A Secular Age*.
November 14, 2018
Prepareer een grote kom koude jus met dikke brokken religie en doop daar een filosofische tekst in die van het soort ‘grote passen, snel thuis� en zo wollig qua stijl is dat bijna niemand het meer uitmaakt wat je werkelijk beweert. Knap staaltje werk wanneer je daarvoor geprezen wordt; ik moest telkens aan ‘De Nieuwe Kleren van de Keizer� denken...
February 6, 2013
This is my second reading of Taylor's now "classic" text outlining the spiritual and historical origins of modern western culture. To be clear, by "spiritual origins" I mean Taylor primarily dissects Christianity's contribution to the formation of Anglo-American culture. Taylor, a Catholic, is even-handed when handling protestant/catholic issues but covers little of non-Christian religious traditions. First published in 1989, Taylor's analysis has stood up well and remains a key source. (in addition to his newest book continuing and completing his argument ) Sources of the Self is an essential starting point for any student studying at the interface of religious belief and contemporary culture.
Although my devoting such a great amount of time (twice)! to this 500 page text may seem excessive, close reading of the text has been more than rewarding. In particular, Taylor's final chapters: "Visions of the Post-Romantic Age" and "Epiphanies of Modernism" provided a helpful intellectual infrastructure for both my long-standing interest in theology and the arts and a newer imaginative literature project. In many ways the twenty plus years since the author wrote the text have added significant validation to his assertions. I know of no other text with such a wide-ranging, thoughtful, yet distilled analysis of modern imaginative culture.
However, be forewarned: the writing here is academic and I do not mean simply the presence of numerous endnotes. Taylor's prose while clear is ponderous and without literary style. Worthwhile reading, but Sources of the Self does require a committed reader.
Although my devoting such a great amount of time (twice)! to this 500 page text may seem excessive, close reading of the text has been more than rewarding. In particular, Taylor's final chapters: "Visions of the Post-Romantic Age" and "Epiphanies of Modernism" provided a helpful intellectual infrastructure for both my long-standing interest in theology and the arts and a newer imaginative literature project. In many ways the twenty plus years since the author wrote the text have added significant validation to his assertions. I know of no other text with such a wide-ranging, thoughtful, yet distilled analysis of modern imaginative culture.
However, be forewarned: the writing here is academic and I do not mean simply the presence of numerous endnotes. Taylor's prose while clear is ponderous and without literary style. Worthwhile reading, but Sources of the Self does require a committed reader.
Want to read
April 22, 2019Three short videos where Taylor discusses the changing notions of the self: , , .
Terry Eagleton says the following : "The idea that everyday life is dramatically enthralling, that it is fascinating simply in its boundless humdrum detail, is one of the great revolutionary conceptions in human history, which Charles Taylor in Sources of the Self claims as Christian in inspiration."
Terry Eagleton says the following : "The idea that everyday life is dramatically enthralling, that it is fascinating simply in its boundless humdrum detail, is one of the great revolutionary conceptions in human history, which Charles Taylor in Sources of the Self claims as Christian in inspiration."
June 5, 2024
How does one review a book of this size and scope without writing another book? Overall an excellent book and from my perspective he takes an irritatingly impersonal approach to almost everything he talks about. Which is honestly so rare these days it strikes one as odd and almost nihilistic because he outlines all the different ways we moderns have failed to articulate meaning and support our ideals and yet he never gives us his view on an answer to this mess but he does hint several times that he has a view.
And then at the end he says his purpose in writing the book is to uncover our burred goods and bring these goods back to life in doing so from our spiritless corpse. Goods which he has spent over 500 pages discussing how they have changed and how we supported them has changed and fragmented to the point that no one agrees about anything anymore.
It is interesting though on areas of agreement between Taylor and Fr Seraphim Rose on certain issues such as revolutionary movements arising out of Western Christian millenarian movements and I believe although I am not certain and unwilling to dig through the 500 page tomb to find if I am right in thinking he also mentioned the rise of conspiracy theories pre French revolution?
The most interesting insight from this book for me was how almost every secular philosophy or movement emerges out of Western Christianity at some point and then after going through some secular changes it gets sucked back into religion and taken over by it as it's own in an odd multi-century dialectical progression. The great levelling that is so apparent and hideous in Marxism begins with the Protestants as they reject all higher ideals of the warrior, aristocrat, and monk in favor of ordinary life and improving man's lot in this world. Which sets off a long chain of though which results in secular society saying we can not only go about attaining these ideals without religion, religion actually stands in our way of perfecting this world.
Taylors main point seems to be showing how Western man goes from acknowledging an external transcendent reality that a person aligns themselves with to a world in which nothing really matters besides the self. The first begins in Plato and is essentially selfless, meaning they have no concept of an interpretive self or a disengaged self that see's the world turned into objects it can grasp and control. Augustine develops an idea of a self that turns inward in order to be in communion with God. This get's developed by latter thinkers into what I mentioned above by such thinkers as Descartes and Locke and many others.
In the enlightenment and Deism the turn inward was to find a rational universe created by God that we could come to fully know and understand through reason. The philosophical and social theory of this period was Utilitarianism and it's unarticulated but axiomatic assumption that pleasure was good and should be maximized.
The Romantics reacted to the lack of meaning and the disengaged self that masters it's world by turning inward to find attunement with the vital and meaning giving nature.
The more people turned inward to find different things the more the self which was through most of this time a unitary self begins to dissolve and an infinite abyss opens up inside of man.
Bentham saw that the greatest threat to the principal of utility was the principle of asceticism.
Pg 318 "Christian faith has been transformed by incorporating aspirations which were first developed on the fringes of or quite outside the Christian church. For instance, the central emphasis on reducing suffering which was pioneered by the radical Enlightenment, by anti-clerical figures like Bentham and Beccaria, became a constitutive feature of nineteenth century reforming evangelical Anglicanism. More subtly, contemporary sexual equality, and world economic justice. In a more complex and untraceable fashion, the "decline of Hell", the steady growth of the belief that salvation is universal, which we see in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, not only in Deism but even within revival movements - Wesley's refection of Calvinist predestinarianism is a case in point-reflects inextricably both orthodox religious sensibility and secular rationalist critique.
It may appear that the influence is all one way, that religious groups have been forced to take on board bits of secular humanist culture to survive. But secular humanism also has its roots in Judaeo-Christian faith; it arises from a mutation out of a form of tat faith. The question can be put, whether this is more than a matter of historical origin, whether it doesn't also reflect a continuing dependence. My belief, badly stated here, is that it does."
Pg 331 "In giving central significance to sensual pleasure and pain, and in challenging all the different conceptions of order, the utilitarians made it possible for the first time to put the relief of suffering, human but also animal, at the centre of the social agenda. This has had truly revolutionary effects in modern society, transforming not only our legal system but the whole range of our practices and concerns."
pg 381 Shelley talks about how till the 18th century there was a standard interpretation of reality and symbols one could use and refer to as a poet. By the 19th century the poet must formulate his own cosmic syntax and shape the poetic reality. Nature once prior to poetry now shares a common origin in the poets creativity.
And then at the end he says his purpose in writing the book is to uncover our burred goods and bring these goods back to life in doing so from our spiritless corpse. Goods which he has spent over 500 pages discussing how they have changed and how we supported them has changed and fragmented to the point that no one agrees about anything anymore.
It is interesting though on areas of agreement between Taylor and Fr Seraphim Rose on certain issues such as revolutionary movements arising out of Western Christian millenarian movements and I believe although I am not certain and unwilling to dig through the 500 page tomb to find if I am right in thinking he also mentioned the rise of conspiracy theories pre French revolution?
The most interesting insight from this book for me was how almost every secular philosophy or movement emerges out of Western Christianity at some point and then after going through some secular changes it gets sucked back into religion and taken over by it as it's own in an odd multi-century dialectical progression. The great levelling that is so apparent and hideous in Marxism begins with the Protestants as they reject all higher ideals of the warrior, aristocrat, and monk in favor of ordinary life and improving man's lot in this world. Which sets off a long chain of though which results in secular society saying we can not only go about attaining these ideals without religion, religion actually stands in our way of perfecting this world.
Taylors main point seems to be showing how Western man goes from acknowledging an external transcendent reality that a person aligns themselves with to a world in which nothing really matters besides the self. The first begins in Plato and is essentially selfless, meaning they have no concept of an interpretive self or a disengaged self that see's the world turned into objects it can grasp and control. Augustine develops an idea of a self that turns inward in order to be in communion with God. This get's developed by latter thinkers into what I mentioned above by such thinkers as Descartes and Locke and many others.
In the enlightenment and Deism the turn inward was to find a rational universe created by God that we could come to fully know and understand through reason. The philosophical and social theory of this period was Utilitarianism and it's unarticulated but axiomatic assumption that pleasure was good and should be maximized.
The Romantics reacted to the lack of meaning and the disengaged self that masters it's world by turning inward to find attunement with the vital and meaning giving nature.
The more people turned inward to find different things the more the self which was through most of this time a unitary self begins to dissolve and an infinite abyss opens up inside of man.
Bentham saw that the greatest threat to the principal of utility was the principle of asceticism.
Pg 318 "Christian faith has been transformed by incorporating aspirations which were first developed on the fringes of or quite outside the Christian church. For instance, the central emphasis on reducing suffering which was pioneered by the radical Enlightenment, by anti-clerical figures like Bentham and Beccaria, became a constitutive feature of nineteenth century reforming evangelical Anglicanism. More subtly, contemporary sexual equality, and world economic justice. In a more complex and untraceable fashion, the "decline of Hell", the steady growth of the belief that salvation is universal, which we see in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, not only in Deism but even within revival movements - Wesley's refection of Calvinist predestinarianism is a case in point-reflects inextricably both orthodox religious sensibility and secular rationalist critique.
It may appear that the influence is all one way, that religious groups have been forced to take on board bits of secular humanist culture to survive. But secular humanism also has its roots in Judaeo-Christian faith; it arises from a mutation out of a form of tat faith. The question can be put, whether this is more than a matter of historical origin, whether it doesn't also reflect a continuing dependence. My belief, badly stated here, is that it does."
Pg 331 "In giving central significance to sensual pleasure and pain, and in challenging all the different conceptions of order, the utilitarians made it possible for the first time to put the relief of suffering, human but also animal, at the centre of the social agenda. This has had truly revolutionary effects in modern society, transforming not only our legal system but the whole range of our practices and concerns."
pg 381 Shelley talks about how till the 18th century there was a standard interpretation of reality and symbols one could use and refer to as a poet. By the 19th century the poet must formulate his own cosmic syntax and shape the poetic reality. Nature once prior to poetry now shares a common origin in the poets creativity.
May 27, 2024
Before we moved from Colorado last year, I decided to take up an offer to attempt to climb a 14-er, a peak of 14,000 feet. I’d done a lot of hiking in the 7,000-9,000-foot range, and I felt that I was in pretty good shape—for my age bracket. But climbing a 14-er, even starting at around 12,000 feet, would be quite the challenge. It’s up, up, up, and with thinner and thinner air. With about every hike in the mountains of Colorado, you begin by going up. And up. I got in the habit of starting with a sense of determination for each hike, but especially the 14-er, I was focused on getting to the top. And, as with everything, there’s a price to pay: one reduces one’s ability to slow-down and take in the scenery along the way. In fact, it’s only when one as climbed a while that your growing fatigue compels you to slow down, and, thereby, enjoy the view. The higher you go, the more you have to rest, and thus the more scenery you take in. And as you attain higher altitudes, the scenery increases in grandeur, scope, and beauty.
So it is with some books, those that, as Robert Pirsig describes it, take you to the “high country of the mind.� This is such a book. It consists of 521 pages of text, plus about another 50 pages of end notes. The book begins by setting forth the nature of the inquiry and some of Taylor’s general philosophical perspectives before plunging into a history of western philosophy and art (primarily poetry) that defines our sense of ourselves, especially as moral animals. This is indeed high altitude stuff in a mountain of a book. And, because I was eager to achieve the summit of this work (i.e., complete reading it), I went a little fast over some very scenic terrain before slowing down more to take in the text. But even then, I’m hard-pressed to recreate Taylor’s arguments, their having come as fast and as high as they did. After the initial statement of his philosophical premises and intentions that I noted above, Taylor takes on a journey through Western philosophy. He begins with Plato and then moves on to Augustine, Descartes, Locke, Protestant divines, the radical Enlightenment, the Deists, and Kant, before moving over more into poetry, belles lettres, and criticism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It was indeed a steep and hard climb, and I must admit that the enterprise taxed my meager mental resources. But that being said, I did make it to the end (unlike my quest to attain a 14-er; I tapped out at 13,200 on that try). But while I doubt that I’ll ever try a 14-er again, I do plan to return this book. In fact, my next planned adventure in the high country of the mind will be Taylor’s A Secular Age, his follow-up (about 20 years later) to Sources. (Building intellectual mountains takes time.) And I plan on returning to Sources as well, to take in more appreciatively and lastingly the vistas that Taylor offers on this journey.
I realize that what I’ve written here is more like a short movie trailer—an appreciation, a teaser—than a book review or report. But if you’re so inclined, if you wonder how our culture has come to be as it is, what “modernity,� “instrumental reason,� “Romanticism,� and “Modernism,� are all about—to take just a few random examples—then I hope that you’ve learned that this mountain of a book will prove worth the climb. And if you venture it, I’ll hope to wave to you from the adjoining peak.
So it is with some books, those that, as Robert Pirsig describes it, take you to the “high country of the mind.� This is such a book. It consists of 521 pages of text, plus about another 50 pages of end notes. The book begins by setting forth the nature of the inquiry and some of Taylor’s general philosophical perspectives before plunging into a history of western philosophy and art (primarily poetry) that defines our sense of ourselves, especially as moral animals. This is indeed high altitude stuff in a mountain of a book. And, because I was eager to achieve the summit of this work (i.e., complete reading it), I went a little fast over some very scenic terrain before slowing down more to take in the text. But even then, I’m hard-pressed to recreate Taylor’s arguments, their having come as fast and as high as they did. After the initial statement of his philosophical premises and intentions that I noted above, Taylor takes on a journey through Western philosophy. He begins with Plato and then moves on to Augustine, Descartes, Locke, Protestant divines, the radical Enlightenment, the Deists, and Kant, before moving over more into poetry, belles lettres, and criticism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It was indeed a steep and hard climb, and I must admit that the enterprise taxed my meager mental resources. But that being said, I did make it to the end (unlike my quest to attain a 14-er; I tapped out at 13,200 on that try). But while I doubt that I’ll ever try a 14-er again, I do plan to return this book. In fact, my next planned adventure in the high country of the mind will be Taylor’s A Secular Age, his follow-up (about 20 years later) to Sources. (Building intellectual mountains takes time.) And I plan on returning to Sources as well, to take in more appreciatively and lastingly the vistas that Taylor offers on this journey.
I realize that what I’ve written here is more like a short movie trailer—an appreciation, a teaser—than a book review or report. But if you’re so inclined, if you wonder how our culture has come to be as it is, what “modernity,� “instrumental reason,� “Romanticism,� and “Modernism,� are all about—to take just a few random examples—then I hope that you’ve learned that this mountain of a book will prove worth the climb. And if you venture it, I’ll hope to wave to you from the adjoining peak.
September 14, 2023
In general, I really try to avoid using hyperbolic language. Especially so when reviewing books. It is no exaggeration to say Taylor’s “Sources of the Self� is one of the most remarkable works I’ve ever read. The immensity of intellectual ground covered paired with the precision and depth so clearly on display in these pages is, truly, something I’ve never come across prior to diving in here. Reading the book was bewildering at times, almost making me wonder, simultaneously, how could someone possibly see so much complexity with so much clarity and how could I possibly hope to digest everything presently being encountered? What got me over the edge was Taylor’s humility which shadowed his words throughout. He didn’t lack confidence or rigor, but Charles Taylor seemed to know how complicated this subject is, and that was a strange comfort for me. All this being said, finishing this one felt like a tremendous accomplishment as much as it was a worthwhile endeavor. If you have any serious interest in what it means to be a “self,� let alone how language, culture, philosophy, theology, sociology, history, political structures, and economics all come together in a dizzying amalgam which somehow comprises the multi-form modern identity, there is no other place to look. This is the spot.
The very definition of a five star book.
The very definition of a five star book.
February 19, 2025
After reading Larry Siedentop's 'Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism' and Tom Holland's 'Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind,' I decided to read Charles Taylor's 'Sources of the Self' to further acquaintane myself with Western individual, self-identity.
However, in contrast to both Siedentop's and Holland's works, Taylor's one was more dense and a bit rigid for a student with less attractive metaphors.
Nevertheless, the book offers a wealth of thought-provoking philosophical insights that were noticeably absent in the previous two works I read. It delves deeply into the evolution of the concept of the self, tracing its development through key historical periods—ranging from ancient history, through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Victorian era, and ultimately, modernity. This broad historical analysis enriches the understanding of how the notion of self has transformed over time.
I highly recommend this book to anyone familiar with the works of Descartes, Locke, Hume, Rousseau, and Voltaire—though I suggest reading those authors first to fully appreciate the depth and context this book provides.
However, in contrast to both Siedentop's and Holland's works, Taylor's one was more dense and a bit rigid for a student with less attractive metaphors.
Nevertheless, the book offers a wealth of thought-provoking philosophical insights that were noticeably absent in the previous two works I read. It delves deeply into the evolution of the concept of the self, tracing its development through key historical periods—ranging from ancient history, through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Victorian era, and ultimately, modernity. This broad historical analysis enriches the understanding of how the notion of self has transformed over time.
I highly recommend this book to anyone familiar with the works of Descartes, Locke, Hume, Rousseau, and Voltaire—though I suggest reading those authors first to fully appreciate the depth and context this book provides.
July 31, 2019
Sources of the Self offers a sympathetic and compelling account of the modern identity. Taylor's approach is historical and interpretative; he aims to explain how it is that the dominant aims and values of modernity, concerns related to interiority, or a subjectivity, ordinary life (i.e., commerce, the nuclear family, etc), and the importance of the natural world can be seen to be compelling, to articulate goods that are valuable and worth pursuing. The result is a complex narrative that, in different ways, resists the decline narratives made famous by Karl Polanyi, MacIntyre, Brad Gregory, amongst others, suggesting that modernity can and must be embraced, because, when sympathetically considered, we cannot but recognize the importance of the constitutive goods of modernity.
July 20, 2021
The expected product of an academic leech: people long dead were right because those can't change position like Taylor's generation. Or is it simply because he can rehash what some other long dead author has said of the mentioned long dead philosophers, without risk of the dead author coming to claim back his piece?
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