The One and the Many: A Reconstruction and Critique of Charles Taylor’s Political Philosophy

• Main Authors: Chia-hao Hsu, 許家豪
• Other Authors: Ying-wen Tsai
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/d7484k

博士 === 國立中山大學 === 政治學研究所 === 96 === The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the often-ignored inherent philosophical connection between Charles Taylor’s ontological argument (philosophical anthropology) and his political scheme. Taylor articulates a moral realist understanding of the plurality of values and an ontological statement of human agency, and tries to demostrate a possibility of reconciliation between essentially conflicting values and cultures. In Taylor’s view, “the many” does not necessarily entail tragical choices among values, as Isaiah Berlin famously asserted, but can be possibly mediated through the common human agency with the hope that we can eventually reach one true consensus. Based on this uniquely Taylorian understanding of human condition, Taylor’s political scheme can be seen as an effort to ameliorate the deep-rooted malaise within Western modernity, and find a common ontological ground among community members and citizens by which deliberations can be facilitated. The thesis will go on to examine Taylor’s two most inspiring political assertions, namely, the polilics of recognition and civic humanism, in detail. I will argue that although Taylor optimistically believes that a common moral and cultural understanding can help forming and be transformed into a common political common good within a given community, the connection between these two levels of commonality is fairly weak. Moreover, what liberals object is precisely Taylor’s attempt to equate cultural common understanding with a form of political common good.