Abstract
AbstractThis chapter focuses on so-called projects of regenerating agency in late modernity and postmodernity. It begins by recapping Taylor's diagnosis of the problem of agency in modernity: a diagnosis that turns out to be a revised version of the secularization thesis. It then moves to Taylor's suggested therapy for the problem of agency, namely, his invocation of the aesthetic and poetic as epiphanic, that is, as a revelation of held moral orientations, ideals, values, and ends. Taylor's treatment of the epiphanic is critiqued through a discussion of the relationship between the sublime and agency. It is argued that Taylor's invocation of the epiphanic as sublime remains a gesture, that is, a promising movement and hope for a glimpse of transcendence. The promise of the epiphanic and the sublime for projects of regenerating agency becomes clearer when interpreted as part of the ends and aims of the disciplines of self-cultivation and self-transformation.
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