Taylor and Heidegger’s Critiques of the Projectionist Account of Values and Its Underlying Naturalistic Ontology

Abstract

In Sources of the Self, Charles Taylor critiques the projectionist account of values and its underlying naturalistic ontology. Likewise, in Being and Time, Martin Heidegger demonstrates that the strata theoretical explanation of practical things invested with values does not adequately describe our experience of them. I aim to demonstrate that if we read these criticisms together, we find ourselves in a better position to reveal the reality of a practical and ethical life. Taylor himself raises the question of what we are committed ontologically in our ethical commitments, but does not develop an answer. Heidegger’s ontological notion of the world in Being and Time could provide a partial answer.