Recent years have witnessed growing concerns about how we should conduct conservation activities in a world of human-altered biophysical conditions. The ‘novel ecosystems’ perspective has emerged as a way to meet this challenge. Yet its focus on accepting ‘new natures’ as the ‘new normal’ has drawn much criticism from those wedded to conventional forms of conservation, such as ‘ecological restoration’. This paper: 1) provides a much needed review of this dispute; 2) formulates and deploys an original analytical framework, which draws (...) on Thomas Kuhn's ‘theoretical history’ of science and Charles Taylor's moral philosophy to extricate the entangled moral and material ontologies of nature which conflate facts with values in the world-building activities of disputants; and 3) identifies and examines the processes underlying these world-building activities. The paper closes by offering an initial suggestion on how to explore options for resolving this highly contentious debate. (shrink)

Although Ricoeur and Taylor are often grouped together, their conceptions of language, literature, and practical reason are very different. The first half of this essay focuses on Ricoeur's theory of triple mimesis and narrative, showing how his attempt to synthesize Kant, Husserl, and structuralism results in a formalism that blocks out the ontological, hermeneutical, and historical dimensions of literature and practical reason. The second half of the essay develops Taylor's ontological conception of public imagination and illustrates the dynamics of this (...) conception of language and interpretation by showing how literary works debate with each other over language, subjectivity, and reference. Narrative does not just order; it argues. (shrink)

This article addresses the problem of two extreme positions in the self-understanding of human beings namely ignoring culture or its over-determination. Though Charles Taylor and Antonio Gramsci are widely known to differ from each other in many respects, we endeavor a congruent reading to evolve a comprehensive perspective. We make avail of their concepts, such as background, horizon, and common sense, to comprehend the nature of the culturally constituted self and its relevance for education. For both Taylor and Gramsci, the (...) human self is situated in a cultural framework. Though the relation between self and culture is constitutive and inevitable, culture does not entirely determine or overshadow the self. This stance gives space for upholding freedom, dignity and liberation of the human self in both of them. While preserving the essential role of culture in the formation of the human self, education must not be reduced to identity politics. Education must incorporate culture, be critical of it and pay attention to forming a critical self. (shrink)

In this dissertation I examine the topics of ethics, religion, and their relationship in the work of Charles Taylor. I take Taylor's attempt to confront modern disenchantment by seeking a kind of re-enchantment as my guiding thread. Seeking re-enchantment means, first of all, defending an `engaged realist' account of strong evaluation, i.e., qualitative distinctions of value that are seen as normative for our desires. Secondly, it means overcoming self-enclosure and achieving self-transcendence, which I argue should be understood in terms of (...) transcending a `lower' mode of selfhood for a `higher' one in concern for `strong goods'. One of the main issues that Taylor raises is whether re-enchantment requires theism for its full adequacy. He advances - often as `hunches' - controversial claims regarding the significance of theism (1) for defending strong evaluative realism and (2) for motivating an ethic of universal human concern. I seek to fill out his hunches in terms of a theistic teleological perspective that is centered on the `telos of communion'. I argue that such a view is important for overcoming the problem of what Bernard Williams calls the `radical contingency' of ethical beliefs, which seems to undermine their normative authority. However, I argue that if a non-theistic view of cosmic purpose (e.g., Thomas Nagel's view) can be regarded as a viable option, then it could also help to address this problem and support a kind of re-enchantment. Taylor also advances the controversial view that (3) there is an ineradicable draw to `transcendence' in human life in connection to the quest for the meaning of life. Here he opposes certain mainstream theories of secularization that see it as a process involving the ineluctable fading away of the relevance of religion. I seek to fill out and defend Taylor's view in this matter. Besides providing a reading of Taylor's work as a whole and advancing further some of the issues he raises, I also examine his general evaluative framework based on his account of strong evaluation. In doing so I show how he provides a distinct and important perspective among contemporary moral philosophers. (shrink)

This article draws from Charles Taylor’s work of retrieval to advance moral foundations theory (MFT). Taylor’s contribution to MFT lies in his insistence that we retrieve the moral sources that have helped constitute, substantiate, and give meaning to individuals’ moral sensibilities. Applying Taylor’s insights to MFT, this article seeks to advance a view of moral foundations that connects them more explicitly to their underlying moral sources. Using this retrieved account of moral foundations, this article then addresses current issues within moral (...) foundations research and theory. Finally, this article suggests ways in which Taylor’s philosophy can contribute to three areas within business ethics: ethical leadership, behavioral ethics, and ethics pedagogy. (shrink)

Calhoun’s critical sociology relies not only on engagements with Habermas, Bourdieu and Taylor, but also on the middle range empirical traditions of American sociology. Through a review of his recent work on cosmopolitanism and globalization, community and solidarity, and public spaces and sociology, I propose that his search to explain different ways in which solidarity is developed offers a robust sociological foundation for the development of the most appropriate intellectual formation, and institutional sequel, to the emancipatory project that undergirds critical (...) theory’s hope and commitment. At the same time, we all need to rethink how both critical theory and more empirical sociologies can help us recognize the issues and agencies most vital for the address of contemporary cultural, social and biophysical needs. (shrink)

The criticism is often made of sociology, especially in the US, that it is mired in ethnocentrism, provincialism, needlessly scientistic methods, and a depoliticized quest for the status of a ‘true science’. Though a strong case can be made for such an accusation, it is also true that certain exemplars have succeeded in transcending these crippling shortcomings of practice and imagination. One such scholar is examined in this article with an eye toward not only the scope of the work attempted, (...) but the rhetorical posture that made his notable success possible. It seems to be the case that certain gifted members of the ‘Sixties generation’, through cross-disciplinary education and with cosmopolitan intentions, managed to create a new type of sociology in the US during the 1980s and 1990s which had not existed before. This article explores one such case. (shrink)

This book addresses a central dilemma in critical theory today: how to theorize the subject as both a construct of oppressive discourse and as a dialogical agent. By engaging a wide range of leading philosophical and critical thinkers—James, Habermas, MacIntyre, Rorty, Taylor, Derrida and West are all critiqued—Meili Steele proposes linking language with human agency in order to develop an alternative textual and ethical theory of the subject. Developing this theory through readings that address issues of identity politics, race and (...) feminist theory, Steele argues that we do not have to choose between an idealized or demonized modernity, offering new ways of understanding the ethical and political dimensions of imaginative narratives. (shrink)

Currently, much of sociology lacks an accurate understanding of what it means to be human. Hence, as a discipline, it often finds itself erroneously searching for probabilistic social laws based on inadequate philosophical anthropologies derived from the natural sciences. This article proffers a solution by re-acknowledging an overlooked axis of ‘human nature’. By conceiving of human beings as fundamentally moral, believing creatures, I argue that more adequate explanations of social life require a hermeneutical, historical and moralistic reading. Employing this alternative (...) approach to sociological analysis, I unearth the moral groundwork under-girding the debate between Easterners and Westerners over the question of whether the Hindu caste system is exploitative. Having done so, I conclude that only a more in-depth acknowledgment and articulation of the moral sources from which we draw our beliefs can propel debaters of both Eastern and Western philosophical dispositions towards resolution. (shrink)