Charles Taylor

Over the past four decades, Charles Taylor's work as an intellectual historian, epistemologist, and normative political theorist has made him a leading figure in contemporary social philosophy. In Charles Taylor: Thinking and Living Deep Diversity, Mark Redhead examines the problem of political fragmentation, the problem of how to accommodate narrowly defined groups while promoting allegiance to a larger polity, through an analysis of Taylor's thought and politics. Redhead argues that Taylor's work evinces a gallant, though unsucessful confrontation with fragmentation that dramatically illuminates the politcal, moral and epistemological tensions at play in a problem of political fragmentation. Charles Taylor is both a major contribution to contemporary debates about liberalism, group rights, and multiculturalism as well as a path breaking study of the politics, life, and thought of Charles Taylor.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 Introduction. Chapter 2 The Political Context for a Deeply Diverse Vision Chapter 3 The Politics of Deep Diversity Chapter 4 Atomism and Fragmentation Chapter 5 Deep Diversity's Discontents Chapter 6 Self-Interpreting Animals Chapter 7 Taylor's Catholic Modernity Chapter 8 Thinking Beyond the Limits of Deep Diversity

About the Author :
Mark Redhead is visiting professor in the Department of Political Science at Oregon State University.

Review :
Cultural diversity today is not an academic issue, but a lived reality for many societies in the grip of globalization. No contemporary thinker has reflected more seriously on this reality than Charles Taylor whose work champions a recognition of 'deep diversity' as an alternative to communal homogeneity and atomistic fragmentation. Redhead examines this perspective on numerous levels-political, philosophical, and personal-thus offering a perceptive entree into the Canadian's complex opus, while also suggesting a more pragmatic solution to some remaining quandaries in that work. Mark Readhead's book is one of the closest studies to date of Charles Taylor's life and thought. Charles Taylor displays the sort of careful, meditative, generous temperament for which Taylor is widely admired, suggesting that Redhead is in an excellent position to respond to the above challenges and to continue to help us think beyond his subject. The book is well researched, clear, and of interest to political theorists, philosophers, and readers interested in contemporary struggles for intranational political recognition. Readhead's book is worth reading, especially for its descriptive portrayal of Taylor's thought. Mark Redhead places the theme of 'deep diversity' at the center of his study of Charles Taylor; he attempts to elucidate Taylor via a 'deep analysis,' treating Taylor not only as a thinker, with roots, e.g., in Hegel, but taking very seriously Taylor's involvement in Canadian politics, his Catholic faith, as well as his personal experience growing up in an Anglo-French Quebec household. Redhead manages not only to shed much new light on Taylor, but his book serves as a model for the study of a serious thinker in terms of the interaction of life and thought. Without ever being reductionist Redhead gives us a very rich picture of Taylor-and some astute reflections on the limitations of Taylor as a political philosopher. Redhead's study of Taylor and 'deep diversity' must be judged 'deeply successful.'