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Inward and Outward with the Modern Self*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2010

David Braybrooke
Affiliation:
Dalhousie University; The University of Texas at Austin

Extract

The modern self, with its inwardness, its freedom and its individuality (p. ix), suffers, Taylor tells us, from disenchantment (p. 500, cf. pp. 17-18, 186). Moreover, disenchantment has come in spite of the advance, to which Taylor wishes to give full credit, that modernity has made in giving great value to ordinary life at work and in the family (p. 211). For religion, though still present as one layer of sentiment among many in the historical deposits that compose modern culture, has given ground to “disengaged instrumentalism” or to its antagonist, romantic “expressivism” (p. 498). Taylor, a philosopher of uncommonly generous spirit, is willing to find good in each of these orientations: the first, for example, has with utilitarianism put the relief of needless suffering at the top of the moral agenda (p. 331), along with redeeming from superstitious repression a number of innocent pleasures; the second has deepened human capacity, on the one hand by deepening emotions (both in the sense of oneself and in concern for others), on the other hand by gaining for them intellectual respect (pp. 294, 372, 419).

Type
Interventions/Discussions
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1994

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References

Notes

1 A point that came to light when I discussed Taylor's book with Louise Hodgden.

2 Simmel, Georg, “The Web of Group-Affiliation,” in Simmel, Georg, Conflict and the Web of Group-Affiliation, translated by Bendix, Reinhard (Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1955), p. 140.Google Scholar

3 Ibid., p. 151.

4 Mead, George Herbert, Mind, Self, and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934). See in particular pp. 137–40.Google Scholar

5 I rely here on a chapter, “Therapists and the Search for the Self,” which I have seen in advance of its final revision and publication, from a forthcoming book by Kenneth Kaye.

6 Kaufmann, Walter, ed., The Portable Nietzsche (New York: Viking Press, 1954), p. 515.Google Scholar

7 I have sharpened several points to take into account some comments, for which I am grateful, by the referee for Dialogue.