Charles Taylor's "A Secular Age"

This serial ran from August 28th to October 30th 2008, in ten parts, serving as an abridgement to Charles Taylor's recent philosophy book exploring the change in beliefs that took place in the Western world between 1500 and 2000. Each of the parts ends with a link to the next one, so to read the entire serial, simply click on part one, below, and then follow the "next" links to read on.

Here are the ten parts:

1. Charles Taylor
2. Social Imaginaries
3. Exclusive Humanism
4. "Religion" versus "Science"
5. The Nova Effect
6. Religion Today
7. The Immanent Frame
8. Subtraction Stories
9. Cross Pressures
10. Taylor on Christianity

A Secular Age is published by Belknap Press (2007), ISBN 978-0674026766.

This serial is dedicated to Jack Monahan, for reminding me of something wonderful I had forgotten.

Comments

[Jack Monahan]

Now I'm extra embarrassed for having fallen behind on this serial :)

Great work Chris, and quite a service in summarizing such a huge text. With "Ethics of Authenticity" as my introduction to Taylor, it gave me a very unrealistic expectation of the man's potential for brevity!
While certainly expansive on the page at least he has an easy-going clarity. This serial reinforces my admiration for his work, and makes me feel confident that I'll actually get to explore it firsthand sometime, though that season in my life may take a while.

On another note, pending a publisher agreement my plucky indie dev outfit will have to finish our game in a month's time... I'm actually rather delighted at the prospect and while I have been spending more time at work, we're far from crunching, and I'd certainly like to put this one to bed. Hope you're doing well, Chris.

[Chris]

Jack: no need to feel embarrassed - it's a long, long serial, and you have all the time you need to read it because it's not going anywhere. ;)

Like you, I came to Taylor via "Ethics of Authenticity" and so was shocked at the sheer weight (in both senses of the word!) of "A Secular Age". :)

Best of luck with your game!

[Ritam Mukherjee (UGC research fellow/ Bengali/calcutta university)]

very helpful synopsis for my research work...