Charles Taylor
Who we are is formed in dialogue with others and with ideals we care about – so recognising people’s identities is a political duty.
Placement
Sources of the Self and the politics of recognition: identity emerges in dialogue with others.
Key ideas
- Politics of recognition
- A Secular Age
- Strong evaluations
Teachers: Isaiah Berlin, G. E. M. Anscombe
Students: Michael Sandel
Influence
Influenced by 7
Johann Gottfried Herder
influenced by
Taylor took from Herder the expressive-constitutive view of language, setting a ‘Hamann-Herder-Humboldt’ theory against designative theories of meaning (The Language Animal, 2016). C. Taylor, The Language Animal (2016); “The Importance of Herder”, in E. and A. Margalit (eds.), Isaiah Berlin: A Celebration (1991)
Evidence: AI draft
Johann Gottfried Herder › 1744–1803
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
influenced by
Taylor read Hegel as joining Enlightenment autonomy with Romantic expressivism (Hegel, 1975) and drew on his theory of recognition for a politics of recognition (1992). C. Taylor, Hegel (1975); Hegel and Modern Society (1979); “The Politics of Recognition”, in A. Gutmann (ed.), Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition (1992)
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel › 1770–1831
Martin Heidegger
influenced by
Taylor took from Heidegger the idea of engaged agency against a background of practices, opposing it to representational models of mind (‘Engaged Agency and Background in Heidegger’, 1993). C. Taylor, “Engaged Agency and Background in Heidegger”, in C. Guignon (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger (1993); Sources of the Self (1989)
Evidence: AI draft
Martin Heidegger › 1889–1976
Ludwig Wittgenstein
influenced by
Taylor read Wittgenstein’s remarks on following a rule as showing that understanding rests on an unarticulated background of embodied practice (‘To Follow a Rule’, 1993). C. Taylor, “To Follow a Rule”, in C. Calhoun et al. (eds.), Bourdieu: Critical Perspectives (1993), repr. in Philosophical Arguments (1995)
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Ludwig Wittgenstein › 1889–1951
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
influenced by
Taylor took from Merleau-Ponty the idea of embodied agency, a pre-reflective bodily grasp of the world, against representational epistemology (‘Embodied Agency’, 1989; Retrieving Realism, 2015). C. Taylor, “Embodied Agency”, in H. Pietersma (ed.), Merleau-Ponty: Critical Essays (1989); H. Dreyfus and C. Taylor, Retrieving Realism (2015)
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Maurice Merleau-Ponty › 1908–1961
G. E. M. Anscombe studied with
studied with
Taylor’s biography at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna names Anscombe, with Isaiah Berlin, as supervisor of his Oxford DPhil (1961), the basis of The Explanation of Behaviour (1964); other accounts name Berlin alone, so her formal role is uncertain. IWM Vienna, “Charles Taylor – Short Biography”; R. Abbey, Charles Taylor (2000)
Evidence: AI draft
G. E. M. Anscombe › 1919–2001
Frantz Fanon
influenced by
In “The Politics of Recognition” (1992) Taylor named Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth (1961) as an influential source of the idea that misrecognition oppresses: the colonisers’ chief weapon was imposing their image of the colonised on the subjugated – a reading Coulthard later turned against Taylor with Fanon. C. Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition”, in A. Gutmann (ed.), Multiculturalism and “The Politics of Recognition” (1992); G. S. Coulthard, Red Skin, White Masks (2014), ch. 1
Evidence: AI draft
Frantz Fanon › 1925–1961
Influenced 3
Axel Honneth
influenced ✓
Honneth shared with Taylor’s ‘The Politics of Recognition’ (1992) the thesis that identity depends on recognition, but did not confine recognition to cultural identity (Redistribution or Recognition?, 2003). C. Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition” (1992); N. Fraser and A. Honneth, Redistribution or Recognition? A Political-Philosophical Exchange (2003); SEP “Recognition”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Axel Honneth › b. 1949
Michael Sandel taught
taught
Sandel studied at Balliol College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar and wrote his DPhil under Charles Taylor (1981); it grew into Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (1982). Berggruen Institute, laureate biography of M. Sandel; M. J. Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (1982)
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Michael Sandel › b. 1953
Hartmut Rosa
influenced
Rosa wrote his dissertation on Taylor (Identität und kulturelle Praxis, 1998) and built on Taylor’s strong evaluations and dialogical self in his theory of resonance (Resonanz, 2016). H. Rosa, Identität und kulturelle Praxis. Politische Philosophie nach Charles Taylor (1998); Resonanz. Eine Soziologie der Weltbeziehung (2016)
Evidence: AI draft
Hartmut Rosa › b. 1965
Criticism
Criticized by 2
Enrique Dussel
criticised by
In the same book Dussel discussed Taylor’s Sources of the Self (1989), objecting that its history of the modern self is told from Europe alone and omits the conquest of America and the periphery, the “underside” of modernity. E. Dussel, The Underside of Modernity: Apel, Ricoeur, Rorty, Taylor, and the Philosophy of Liberation (1996)
Evidence: AI draft
Enrique Dussel › 1934–2023
Glen Sean Coulthard
criticised by
Drawing on Fanon, Coulthard argued against Taylor’s ‘The Politics of Recognition’ (1992) that recognition granted by the settler state reproduces colonial rule (Red Skin, White Masks, 2014). G. S. Coulthard, Red Skin, White Masks (2014), ch. 1; C. Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition”, in A. Gutmann (ed.), Multiculturalism (1992)
Evidence: AI draft
Glen Sean Coulthard › b. 1974
Criticizes 2
Isaiah Berlin studied with
studied with
Taylor wrote his Oxford DPhil (1961) under Isaiah Berlin’s supervision; it became The Explanation of Behaviour (1964). He later contributed ‘What’s Wrong with Negative Liberty’ (1979) to Berlin’s Festschrift. R. Abbey, Charles Taylor (2000); C. Taylor, The Explanation of Behaviour (1964)
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
criticised
Taylor argued against Berlin that freedom is not an ‘opportunity concept’ but an ‘exercise concept’ requiring us to discriminate among our motivations (‘What’s Wrong with Negative Liberty’, 1979). C. Taylor, “What’s Wrong with Negative Liberty”, in A. Ryan (ed.), The Idea of Freedom: Essays in Honour of Isaiah Berlin (1979)
Evidence: AI draft
Isaiah Berlin › 1909–1997
Robert Nozick
criticised
Taylor argued against Nozick’s primacy of rights that ascribing rights presupposes an obligation to sustain the society in which the capacities they protect can develop (‘Atomism’, 1979). C. Taylor, “Atomism”, in A. Kontos (ed.), Powers, Possessions and Freedom (1979), repr. in Philosophical Papers 2 (1985)
Evidence: AI draft
Robert Nozick › 1938–2002
Works
The making of the modern identity from Augustine to Romanticism.
Nonrecognition can inflict harm.
- 2007A Secular Age
How belief became one option among many.
Position
Taylor understands human beings as “self-interpreting animals”: who we are depends on the evaluations and languages in which we understand ourselves, and these are formed in dialogue with others. In Sources of the Self he reconstructed the history of the modern self – inwardness, the affirmation of ordinary life, romantic expressivism – and argued that even liberal individualism rests on a strong idea of the good. In his essay on the politics of recognition he argued that identity depends on recognition, and misrecognition can do real harm; this sparked the debate on multiculturalism. In A Secular Age he asked how belief in God went from the default to one option among many. Taylor is a leading voice of communitarian and hermeneutic thought.
Life & context
Taylor was born in Montreal in 1931 and studied at McGill and, as a Rhodes Scholar, at Oxford, where he later held the Chichele Professorship of Social and Political Theory. He taught for most of his career at McGill, was politically active in the New Democratic Party and co-chaired a Quebec commission on the accommodation of cultural differences. He received the Templeton Prize and the Kyoto Prize.
Further main works
- Hegel (1975)
- The Ethics of Authenticity (1991)
Appears in
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