The Ambivalence of Charles Taylor’s Philosophy: What makes our Everyday Reality Real?

Abstract

InThe Language Animal, Charles Taylor’s struggle to provide a theoretical framework for his narration of the self finally becomes obvious. About 30 years after he wrote his great and fascinatingSources of the Self, Taylor closes the gap between the self as a radical being-in-the-world and its analytical premises. Even if the main topic of Taylor’s new book may seem to be only a comparison of what he calls ‘HHH-theory’ and ‘HLC-theory,’ there are two other authors, the combination of whose ideas clarifies not only his approach to language but also to his concept of ‘reality’ as such: Gottlob Frege and Ludwig Wittgenstein.