Animated by the idea of a moral order based on the mutual benefit of equal participants, the Western social imaginary is characterised by three key cultural forms: the economy, the public sphere, and self-governance. Taylor's account offers a fresh perspective on these cultural formations.

Autorentext

Charles Taylor

Klappentext

"Charles Taylor presents a fundamental challenge to neoliberal apologists for the new world order--but not only to them. Anyone who wishes, as I do, to defend transcultural political ideals, notions of development, or the like, will have to face his formidable array of hermeneutically inspired reflections on Western modernity's defining cultural formations. His particular take on the 'social imaginary' makes the strongest case there is for the idea of 'multiple modernities.'"--Thomas McCarthy, Northwestern University

Zusammenfassung
Offers a clear and concise framework for understanding the structure of modern life in the West and the different forms modernity has taken around the world

Inhalt

Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
1 The Modern Moral Order 3
2 What Is a "Social Imaginary"? 23
3 the Specter of idealism 31
4 The Great Disembedding 49
5 The Economy as Objectified Reality 69
6 The Public Sphere 83
7 Public and Private 101
8 The Sovereign People 109
9 An All-Pervasive Order 143
10 The Direct-Access Society 155
11 Agency and Objectification 163
12 Modes of Narration 175
13 The Meaning of Secularity 185
14 Provincializing Europe 195
Notes 197