Charles Taylor, Professor Emeritus at McGill University, has recently been awarded a prestigious new prize established for thinkers whose ideas are of broad significance for shaping human self-understanding and the advancement of humanity. In honour of the occasion Craig Calhoun offers a guide to engaging with Taylor’s work, which deals with topics ranging from personal identity to the challenges of modern democracy to religion in a secular age.
Professor Charles Taylor visited LSE last year and spoke to Sonali Campion about how his thinking had be influenced by his time spent in India. Read the full interview here.
One of the world’s most respected philosophers has just won the $1 million Berggruen Prize. Is this news you can use?
Yes, as a matter of fact, it is. The prize has been given to Charles Taylor, an exceptional thinker whose work can be of value both personally and in public life. In his native Canada, Taylor was a founder of the New Democratic Party, shaped debates and policy on immigration and ethnic politics, and played an important role in keeping Quebec part of Canada but with special status recognising its distinctive culture. Taylor is of global influence as a Catholic thinker, a leader on the social democratic left and a spokesperson for combining rather than opposing liberalism and defense of community. His publications will reward readers with very different interests from personal identity to the challenges of modern democracy to religion in a secular age.
Charles Taylor speaking at LSE in 2015. Credit: LSE/Nigel Stead