Intro
Charles Taylor is one of the most popular and influential contemporary Canadian philosophers. His career is dedicated to understanding how we form our identities and conceptions of what it means to be human. He has produced an extensive body of work that draws upon the thoughts of a wide breadth of philosophers, politicians and scientists.
His historical approach to examining self-hood has revolutionized the way that people understand modern-day ideas about the ‘self’. He traces links between our ideologies today and the development of theories through centuries of civilization. Unlike many traditional economists, psychologists and politicians, who think of people as rational actors that make decisions to maximize utility, Taylor thinks that people’s behavior is reflective of their search for meaning and recognition.1
We become full human agents, capable of understanding ourselves, and hence of defining our identity, through our acquisition of rich human languages of expression.
– Charles Taylor, in his book Multiculturalism 2
