Charles Taylor on the Hermeneutics of ‘Self-Being’ Cover Image

Charles Taylor o hermeneutici ‘sebe-bivstvovanja’
Charles Taylor on the Hermeneutics of ‘Self-Being’

Author(s): Dafne Vidanec
Subject(s): Ethics / Practical Philosophy, Existentialism, Ontology
Published by: Hrvatsko Filozofsko Društvo
Keywords: Aristotle; Martin Heidegger; Charles Taylor; good; spatial orientation; Dasein; selfhood;

Summary/Abstract: The paper deals with Taylor’s theory of morality in the context of his discussion on identity in Source of Self via hermeneutical – Heideggerian – interpretation of epistemological sources for which the author claims are present in the basis of Taylor’s concept of identity. The hypothesis is that, in the sense of Taylor’s understanding, to spatial orientation an ontology of “personal identity” or “selfhood” is immanent, and that its structure reflects the thought structure of Dasein as presented in Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit. I begin the paper with situating the topic, illustrating a connection between Aristotle, Heidegger and Taylor because Talyor thinks about the good as a (moral) axis of human action, the latter being the purpose of his philosophical- anthropological and ethical studies. Thus it encompasses moral foundation enframed by a metaphysics, and therefore Taylor’s consideration of spatial orientation can be interpreted via the prism of the ontology of morality. The second part of the paper deals with epistemological insights which are common for Heidegger (Sein und Zeit) and Taylor (Sources of Self), especially the semantics of their (philosophical) language and teleological-ontological aspects of being related to Heidegger’s Dasein and Taylor’s selfhood in space, the aether of the good. In the final part of the paper, the author discusses Taylor’s concept of spatial orientation.

  • Issue Year: 38/2018
  • Issue No: 01/149
  • Page Range: 69-81
  • Page Count: 13
  • Language: Croatian