Charles Taylor (born November 5, 1931) is a Canadian philosopher known for his viewpoints on morality and modern western identity of individuals and groups. He is often classified as a communitarian.

His principal philosophical standpoint is that of "exclusive humanism"—a humanism without reference to the transcendent, especially as it relates to cultural, social, or political life.

Taylor was educated at the McGill University (B.A. in History in 1952) and at Oxford (B.A. in Politics, Philosophy and Economics in 1955, M.A. in 1960, PhD in 1961).

He worked as Professor for Moral Philosophy at Oxford University and as Professor for Political Sciences and Philosophy at the McGill University in Montreal, Canada, now as professor emeritus. Taylor now has a part-time appointment as a Board of Trustees Professor of Law and Philosophy at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

In 1995 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.

Noted Books

• Hegel (1975)
• Hegel and Modern Society (1979)
• Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity (1989)
• The Malaise of Modernity (1991; the published version of Taylor's William Massey Lectures, reprinted in the U.S. as The Ethics of Authenticity (1992)

External links

• Website at Northwestern University http://www.cas.northwestern.edu/philosophy/Persons/taylor/taylor.htm
• Lecture notes to Charles Taylor's talk on 'An End to Mediational Epistemology', Nov 2004 http://www.goodreads.ca/lectures/taylor/larkin-stuart04.html