Arts and Philosophy

Prize Field: Thought and Ethics

Charles Margrave Taylor
Philosopher

Affiliation: McGill University
Title: Professor Emeritus
Date of Birth: November 5, 1931
Nationality: Canada

Background: Dr. Taylor is an outstanding philosopher who advocates communitarianism and multiculturalism from the perspective of holistic individualism. He has pointed a future course for society through the example of his own life, envisioning a world in which diverse, heterogeneous cultures peacefully coexist upon mutual recognition.

Construction of a Social Philosophy to Pursue the Coexistence of Diverse Cultures

The 2008 Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy focuses on the field of Thought and Ethics. Charles Margrave Taylor will receive the award for his construction of a social philosophy to pursue the coexistence of diverse cultures.

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Dr. Charles Taylor is an outstanding philosopher who advocates "communitarianism" and "multiculturalism" from the perspective of "holistic individualism." He has constructed and endeavored to put into practice a social philosophy that allows human beings with different historical, traditional, and cultural backgrounds to retain their multiple identities and to live in happiness with each other.

He has criticized the atomistic view of the self, the conception of the human being grounded in the human sciences of naturalistic tendency such as methodological individualism and behaviorism, and tried to establish a "philosophical anthropology" on a foundation of phenomenology, hermeneutics, and language-game theory. In his view, human beings are "self-interpreting animals" that act with a sense of value and purpose: human beings articulate everyday feelings and moral intuitions in language and act according to their own evaluation of goals and values. He criticizes modern utilitarianism for leaving value judgments to the feelings and preferences of the atomistic selves and argues against it — believing that human beings are the "situated selves" that are embedded in the fabric of social relations. In other words, it is through webs of interlocution that human beings develop identities and acquire frameworks within which they determine for themselves what is good, what is valuable, what they should do, and what they are for or against.

Having published extensive studies of the philosophy of Hegel (which are widely regarded as the best contemporary work on Hegel written in English) Dr. Taylor delved back into the thought of Rousseau and Herder. He then adopted Gadamer's notions of "fusion of horizons" and "history of effects" to situate his own thought in historical context, and has built a convincing social theory. Drawing on the concept of "recognition," which is a key to his philosophy, he contrasts the "dialogical self" with the "monological self" and offers "freedom in situation" in place of "absolute freedom." Human beings can flourish only if their identities are recognized by others and, accordingly, he stresses the importance of bonds with community and sense of community as necessary conditions for the realization of liberalism emphasizing individual autonomy.

The concept of recognition is at the base of Dr. Taylor's multiculturalism as well. Identity-formation in modern society is sometimes rooted in a distorted recognition, and this often results in self-repression and in a subsequent struggle aimed at a revision of "self-representations" projected upon by others. Dr. Taylor argues that "it's reasonable to suppose that cultures that have provided the horizon of meaning for large numbers of human beings, of diverse characters and temperaments, over a long period of time are almost certain to have something that deserves our admiration and respect, even if it goes along with much that we have to abhor and reject." In putting forth this principle, he has provided rational grounds for the dignity of human beings living a deep diversity and for their demands for recognition.

In his native Canada, Dr. Taylor is also involved in political activities campaigning for the recognition of collective rights of minority groups to preserve their cultural identities. He has been seeking a way to overcome Eurocentrism and to reach for genuinely global values, paying due attention to the specific conditions of non-Western societies. He has invariably aspired to a society resting on mutual recognition, where each member strives by mutual efforts through dialogue for a better understanding and for changing the narrow frameworks of understanding with the realization that the space occupied by him/her as a self within the whole "story" of mankind is quite limited and he/she is in no possession of an absolute standard for judging the relative merits of various cultures. Dr. Taylor is a prominent thinker who has pointed the future course for us through his own life, envisioning the future in which diverse, heterogeneous cultures peacefully coexist upon mutual recognition.