The Malaise of Modernity...

I have been so impress by the philosophy of canadian philosopher Charles Taylor. He is amazing and according to my jugments and very important for our culture. Let me offer some notes from his life and especially from reading his book called "The malaise of modernity." The philosophy of Charles Taylor(winner of the 2007 Templeton Prize), alive in the same socio-cultural context that Rawls and Habermas, tries to answered in their philosophical texts on the question of how people can live together with the context of traditions (cultures, ethnos groups, ideologies and philosophies, religions). Taylor doesn’t accept that there is reason outside of the tradition like Rawls and Habermas did. He uses the philosophy of Gadamer and the history is according to him the context in which we can find the resources; historical reading is not any more just looking at series of events; it is a history of dialectics described as the process of interior conflict where we arrive to create new situations and the history of contradictions. He seeks to provide to us, as readers, awareness of the history and construction of the structures in our immediate social spaces which help us to understand and interpret ourselves, our communities, our society and our place in each of those.

Moreover, Taylor analyzes the issue of postmodernity, specifically analysis of the west and the problems arise within western traditions – philosophy, Christianity etc. He analyzes criteria which people in the west culture use to make for daily choices, the careers they follow, the culture they absorb, the ideologies they believe, the political positions they hold. And finally how western society failed in three areas: living, loving and being human.

Finally, according to Taylor there are three malaise of modernity:
1. Individualism
2. Instrumentalization of reason
3. Loss of freedom

And there is still more about him and his thoughts. I really recommend his book.