Naturalizing Christian ethics: A critique of Charles Taylor's a secular age
Journal of Religious Ethics 40 (1):149-170 (2012)
| Abstract | This essay critically engages the concept of transcendence in Charles Taylor's A Secular Age. I explore his definition of transcendence, its role in holding a modernity-inspired nihilism at bay, and how it is crucial to the Christian antihumanist argument that he makes. In the process, I show how the critical power of this analysis depends heavily and paradoxically on the Nietzschean antihumanism that he otherwise rejects. Through an account of what I describe as naturalistic Christianity, I argue that transcendence need not be construed as supernatural, that all of the resources necessary for a meaningful life are immanent in the natural process, which includes the semiotic capacities of Homo sapiens. Finally, I triangulate Taylor's supernatural account of transcendence, naturalistic Christianity, and Dreyfus and Kelly's physis-based account of “going beyond” our normal normality in All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics for Meaning in a Secular Age | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,865 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesJ. Milbank (2009). Review Article: A Closer Walk on the Wild Side: Some Comments on Charles Taylor's A Secular Age: Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007). X + 874 Pp. US$39.95 (Hb), ISBN 978--0--674--02676--. [REVIEW] Studies in Christian Ethics 22 (1):89-104.
Paul James Crittenden (2009). A Secular Age: Reflections on Charles Taylor′s Recent Book. Sophia 48 (4).
Fred Dallmayr (2012). A Secular Age? Reflections on Taylor and Panikkar. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 71 (3):189-204.
Elizabeth A. Barre (2012). Muslim Imaginaries and Imaginary Muslims: Placing Islam in Conversation with a Secular Age. Journal of Religious Ethics 40 (1):138-148.
Martin Kavka (2012). WHAT IS IMMANENT IN JUDAISM? Transcending A Secular Age. Journal of Religious Ethics 40 (1):123-137.
John Rundell (2010). Charles Taylor and the Secularization Thesis. Critical Horizons 11 (1):119-132.
Hubert L. Dreyfus (2011). All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age. Free Press.
John Kinsey (2010). A Secular Age – by Charles Taylor. Philosophical Investigations 33 (1):75-81.
Rene Kollar (2011). A Secular Age. By Charles Taylor. Heythrop Journal 52 (3):535-536.
Richard Amesbury (2010). A Secular Age – by Charles Taylor. Philosophical Investigations 33 (1):67-74.
Arto Laitinen (2010). Charles Taylor, a Secular Age. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 13 (3).
Guido Vanheeswijck (2013). Charles Taylor's Dilemmas: A Sequel to A Secular Age. Heythrop Journal 54 (2):435-439.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2012-01-18Total downloads6 ( #147,054 of 556,807 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #64,847 of 556,807 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
