Charles Taylor, one of the most outstanding philosophers of our age, turned 90 on November 5, 2021. Taylor has been closely associated with the Institute for Human Sciences for more than three decades. His life and work have always been inseparably bound up with one another. He is a scholar, a committed citizen, and a public intellectual. We owe him an immense debt of gratitude for his intensive academic cooperation and for his many research residencies during which he enriches our Institute with his esprit and easy-going friendliness.
On the occasion of his 85th birthday, his philosophy was showcased in detail in the IWM’s journal “Transit – Europäische Revue” in the form of a tribute featuring a large number of contributors.[1] Intellectuals from a range of disciplines and several generations offered an insight into how Taylor’s philosophy also informed their own.
Taylor’s affiliation with the IWM dates back to the early years of the Institute. He was a regular attendee of the meetings of the Academic Advisory Board, which convened every two years at Castel Gandolfo from 1983 to 1998. His contributions can be found in the “Castelgandolfo-Gespräche,” published by Klett-Cotta from 1985 to 1999.[2] In 1994, following in the footsteps of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, he was appointed Chair of the Advisory Board, a position that he continues to hold today.
It would go beyond the scope of this tribute to mention all of the conferences of the Institute in which Charles Taylor not only took part over the years, but to which he also made a substantial contribution. His articles generally appeared in “Transit.” An early selection was reprinted in 2001 under the title “Wieviel Gemeinschaft braucht die Demokratie” (How Much Community Does Democracy Need?).[3]
Taylor delivered the Jan Patočka Memorial Lecture, which was entitled “Two Theories of Language,” in 1991. In 2000, he inaugurated the series of IWM Lectures in Human Sciences, which were then published in 2001 under the title “Die Formen des Religiösen in der Gegenwart” (The Forms of the Religious in the Present).[4] Many erstwhile IWM Junior Fellows still have fond memories of the summer schools held in Cortona, Italy.
Over the years, Taylor was a Visiting Fellow at the IWM on a number of occasions, pursuing his research on, among other things, the limits of liberalism, the genesis of the modern subject, and multiculturalism, as well as, to an increasing extent, the question of the place of religion in modernity. In 2007, he published his magnum opus “A Secular Age,” in which he retells the emergence of modern secular society in the Western world.
In 2009, Taylor became a Permanent Fellow, bringing a new research focus to the Institute entitled “Modes of Secularism and Religious Responses,” which by 2014 had hosted six conferences as well as workshops, seminars, and lectures, inviting numerous fellows and publishing its research findings.[5] The focus of the research was interdisciplinary in nature and marked a paradigm shift in the understanding of secularization and religion in the modern world.
Taylor is currently conducting intensive research into the erosion of the social foundations of democracy that can be observed everywhere, revisiting arguments from the communitarianism debate of the 1990s. In the face of the creeping disenfranchisement of and dwindling participation on the part of citizens, and against the backdrop of growing inequality and a lack of solidarity, he calls for the idea of community to be revived.[6]
While Charles Taylor’s stature is more commonly found among basketball players, his passion is running. Even during his more recent residencies at IWM, he stuck to his route along the Donaukanal not only with great discipline, but also with a spring in his step each and every time. An appreciation for the long haul and the patience and persistence inherent to intellectual thought are perhaps the most beautiful characteristic of his philosophy.
We would like to thank Charles Taylor for his bond of friendship over the course of many years and would like to wish him great stamina for his next long-distance run on this special day!
Klaus Nellen/ Ludger Hagedorn
Photo © Daniel Domig
[1] “Charles Taylors Landkarte,” edited by Ulf Bohmann, Gesche Keding, and Hartmut Rosa, in: Transit 49 (2016), Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Neue Kritik.
[2] Krzysztof Michalski, Castelgandolfo-Gespäche, vol. I – VIII, 1985-1999, Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.
[3] Charles Taylor, Wieviel Gemeinschaft braucht die Demokratie?, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 2001. You can read the title article here (English and German version).
[4] Charles Taylor, Die Formen des Religiösen in der Gegenwart, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 2001.
[5] See, e.g., Charles Taylor (co-editor), Den Säkularismus neu denken. Religion und Politik in Zeiten der Globalisierung, Transit 39 (2010), Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Neue Kritik.
[6] To be published by Harvard University Press next year: Craig Calhoun, Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar, Charles Taylor, Degenerations of Democracy.
