[lit-ideas] Re: SOS or Charles Taylor's Sources of the Self (revised)
- From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 20 May 2006 09:23:01 +0900
Thanks, John, for joining in.
On 5/20/06, John Wager <john.wager1@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Does Taylor discuss theatre, or fiction, or poetry, in his search for
the modern self?
Don't know. Not so far, in the first couple of chapters, but these are
only a portion of part one in a very long book. I haven't got yet to
the historical chapters.
From the discussion so far, and from my hazy memories, it seems that
Taylor is taking a very Aristotelian approach here.
Spot on. Several of the reviews I've read suggest the same thing, that
Taylor is part of an Aristotlean reaction/revival against the aridity
of analytic philosophy.
What Aristotle seems to supply that I haven't heard about here is an
idea of the importance of ideals. An "ideal" is an exemplar, a concrete
example of some quality. Both tragedy and comedy are full of such
ideals, and these supply the "context" or the "framework" for Aristotle
that seems to be problematic in the "modern" world.
Again. This may come up. Hasn't yet in Chapter 1. I speculate that
Taylor is familiar with the importance of ideals but would argue that
they are unintelligible without the frameworks. What makes a hero a
hero, for example, is excellence in meeting the criteria for
commanding respect.
For Aristotle, we become "better" people not just by thought and
reflection, but by seeing examples of other people who either succeed or
fail in their efforts. We hold up some real individuals as "excellent"
and denigrate others. This happens in real life, but it happens even
moreso when we go to theatre or read fiction.
Again, I speculate. But I have already read a bit (the book is at my
office, so I can't directly cite it just this moment), where Taylor
contrasts the predicament of, for example, the young Luther, who knows
what it is to be a monk and feels terribly sinful because he isn't
living up to those ideals with that of (now I'm making this up) a
modern theologian who is searching for what to believe in a world so
full of options that certainty is impossible.
Cheers,
John McC
--
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"Never attribute to malice that which can be
explained by incompetence and ignorance."
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John Wager john.wager1@xxxxxxxxxxx
Lisle, IL, USA
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