‘My Kind of Catholic.’ On Taylor’s Contribution to Philosophy of Religion

ABSTRACT

Many critics observe a methodological flaw in Taylor’s work. They claim that there is an alleged discrepancy between Taylor’s historical approach on the one hand and his defense of fullness in terms of openness to transcendence on the other. This article challenges this verdict by disambiguating the relation between the role of history in Taylor’s narrative and his personal defense of fullness in terms of religious openness to agapeic transcendence. In order to underpin this position, I first assess the originality of Taylor’s analysis of the historical origin of secularization by comparing his master reform narrative with other stories of secularization (§2), in particular that of Marcel Gauchet (§23). The outcome of this comparison leads to the question regarding the ontological presence of transcendence as a religious experience of fullness. Taylor’s answer to this question is evaluated from an epistemological stance (§4) and a more general cultural approach (§5). In order to retrieve a religious experience of fullness, Taylor highlights the important role of what he calls subtler languages (§6). Finally, the question is raised how subtle words in a ‘post-revolutionary climate’ may retrieve that personal, religious experience of fullness (§7).

KEYWORDS:

• Charles Taylor
• Peter Gordon
• history
• religion
• subtler languages
• epistemology

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Taylor answered his critics, in particular Sheehan (Taylor 2010, 318–321).

2. For a more detailed discussion with Gordon and Woodford on this topic, see Vanheeswijck (2015).

3. Taylor already raised this question in one of his first articles, ‘Ontology’. His conclusion was that there remain ‘ontological gaps’ between both approaches that cannot be bridged (Taylor 1959, 141). Half a century later, Taylor’s uncertainty on bridging these ontological gaps was still present (Taylor 2003, 320; Meijer 2018, 194–195).

4. In his book on the full shape of our linguistic capacities, he explains the crucial role subtler languages may play in shaping human experience. In its preface, he promises ‘to continue my work on the Romantics in order to complete the second part (I hope), as a companion study to this one.’ (Taylor 2016, x) That promise makes me look forward to his further exploring of our linguistic ability to relate openness to agapeic transcendence with human flourishing.