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Introduction

This interview explores Charles Taylor’s understanding of philosophical anthropology and its relationship to Herder. Taylor argues that human culture can be properly understood only in a genetic fashion, through hermeneutics and phenomenology, and names Herder as an important precursor here. Taylor illustrates this through the difference between a purely normative political theory and a contextual political philosophy. On the relationship between naturalism and philosophical anthropology, Taylor identifies what he calls a “good naturalism,” associated with Herder, that explains what kind of animal human beings are, and a “bad naturalism” that explains human beings in reductive, natural scientific terms. Finally, Taylor outlines his current work on language, in which a similar opposition arises, between language as necessarily emerging as a rich set of language games/practices and language as pure description. Theories of language that interpret it only in terms of the latter are thus fundamentally flawed and inaccurate.

Oxford University Press

Anik Waldow Nigel DeSouza

Oxford Scholarship Online

2017

Title: Introduction

Description:

This interview explores Charles Taylor’s understanding of philosophical anthropology and its relationship to Herder.

Taylor argues that human culture can be properly understood only in a genetic fashion, through hermeneutics and phenomenology, and names Herder as an important precursor here.

Taylor illustrates this through the difference between a purely normative political theory and a contextual political philosophy.

On the relationship between naturalism and philosophical anthropology, Taylor identifies what he calls a “good naturalism,” associated with Herder, that explains what kind of animal human beings are, and a “bad naturalism” that explains human beings in reductive, natural scientific terms.

Finally, Taylor outlines his current work on language, in which a similar opposition arises, between language as necessarily emerging as a rich set of language games/practices and language as pure description.

Theories of language that interpret it only in terms of the latter are thus fundamentally flawed and inaccurate.

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Introduction

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