AUTHOR'S BIO

Charles Taylor

Charles Taylor is professor emeritus of philosophy at McGill University. His most recent book is A Secular Age.

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Block Thinking

Charles Taylor Series: Against the Current

2007-09-10

The greatest cultural threat to Europe doesn't come from Islam, but from "block thinking" about Islam. By imposing a false unity on Islam, block thinkers strengthen their counterparts on the other side--Osama bin Laden and his ilk--who think the same way about Christians and Jews.... read

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Seeking Sovereignty in Europe and Iraq

Charles Taylor Series: The Worldly Philosophers

2003-09-29

Two very different efforts at "nation building" are galvanizing world attention: America's struggle to construct a viable polity in Iraq and the EU's ambitious project of making Europe into a true "Union." While many issues involved are distinct, a "democratic deficit" looms large in both undertakings. Why and what will it take to overcome it? ... read

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The Other and Ourselves: Is Multi-culturalism Inherently Relativist?

Charles Taylor Series: The Worldly Philosophers

2002-07-19

Understanding "the other" will pose the 21st century's greatest social challenge. The days are over when "Westerners" could consider their experience and culture as the norm and other cultures merely as earlier stages in the West's development. Nowadays, most of the West senses the arrogant presumption at the heart of that old belief. ... read

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The Alchemy of Violence

Charles Taylor Series: The Worldly Philosophers

2001-07-18

As Slobodan Milosevic awaits his war crimes trial in the Hague, it may be salutary to ask why is it that categorical violence – genocide, say, or ethnic cleansing of the type seen in Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo – is recurred so often in our “civilized” century? The question seems unanswerable. Some people seek explanations in biology: because young men often perpetrate violence, hormones are held as the cause. But it is hard to believe that it all comes down to testosterone. ... read

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