| ||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £7.30
Trade in The Ethics of Authenticity for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £7.30, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Plus, get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
Product Description
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Taylor's objective is to persuade people to investigate the real positive nature of an ideal that, though corrupted, is still very worthwhile and pretty influential on individuals. As the philosopher himself points out, his work is an operation of retrieval.
The book being clearly written is easy to follow; this makes it accessible to a large audience. I therefore highly recommend this book to anyone interested in modern philosophy - especially to students.
Taylor, a Canadian, observes the conservative-liberal debate in America from an outsider's position. He is able to distance himself from the rhetoric, vocabulary, and narrow categories of this debate. I found his insights well worth consideration.
In essence, Taylor attempts to redefine the debate. His concerns are threefold. First, radical individualism has disavowed most moral absolutes, eroded the meaningfulness of life, and resulted in a centripetal self-orientation that denigrates relational connectiveness. Secondly, Taylor is concerned that modern thought has become dominated by a reason that finds the highest good in the economic maximizing of ends. This "instrumental reason" demeans others as mere means to an end, disregards important perspectives that are not integral to the cost/benefit equation, and creates a technological supremacy that may cost us our humanity. Thirdly, Taylor is concerned that institutions have embraced instrumental reason as supreme and creating a power-base that may stand in the way of reform.
Most of this book deals exclusively with Taylor's thoughts on the first of these concerns. Conservatives will be upset that Taylor does not call for a return to older values and older worldviews. Instead, he accepts the modern emphasis on individualism and the corollaries of self-fulfillment and self-actualization. He parts with these liberal ideals by arguing that the centripetal self-focus can only find meaning outside of the self. Discovery of my originality and uniqueness is a dialogical process (with others, values, or deity) that demands an objective "horizon."
Hence, my definition of Taylor's authenticity is the dialogical discovery of my "being." Others are not used to complete my project, but are collaborators and partners. Together we work to throw off the shackles of psychological, institutional, and familial pressures to conform. Freedom from these shackles is not license to abuse, but becomes ground to assume responsibility for self without excuse. Radical individualism escapes meaninglessness only in dialogic connectedness and assumption of personal responsibility.
In my view, the ethics of authenticity are much needed. I hope this book finds many receptive readers.
Taylor explained exactly what's wrong with such critiques- they ignore the fact that "relativism" is merely a perversion of a powerful moral standard that these conservatives ignore- the ethic of authenticity, of being true to one's self and to the rights of others, a liberal standard of the enlightenment that conservatives threaten to destroy along with the excesses of postmodern nihilism. Taylor then goes on a quest to take down both the "boosters" and "knockers" of modernity- and points out where they're right and wrong.
For anyone wrestling with the liberal and conservative debates in this country today, I recommend this little volume heartily, along with Taylor's (much larger) "Sources of the Self" and Ken Wilber's "Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution", which takes on the same issues from multiple perspectives.
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
