Review article

Reception of Hegel’s Social and Political Thought in the Work of Charles Taylor. Bernstein’s Criticism of Taylor’s Interpretation of Hegel

Vladimir Nocić orcid.org/0000-0002-5999-2417

Abstract

This paper considers the role that Hegel’s social and political philosophy plays in modern Anglo-American philosophical tradition. The author accordingly begins with the criticism of Charles Taylor by Richard J. Bernstein, regarding the former’s study on Hegel’s philosophy. By analyzing two fundamental concepts on which Taylor’s reception of Hegel is based – expressivist definition of the self and ethical life – the author shows that these problems are essentially inseparable and that they are nothing but two manifestations of one core problem, which pertains to the definition of the subject within the community in which it is shaped during interaction with others. The author concludes that Bernstein’s criticism of Taylor’s study is mostly limited to the noetic and theoretical aspects of Hegel’s philosophy, while neglecting the social and political ones. Consequently, it fails to satisfactorily establish the significance of Hegel’s philosophy of objective spirit in a modern socio-political context. In the Anglo-American tradition, this significance is most adequately established and represented by Taylor.

Keywords

Charles Taylor; Richard J. Bernstein; Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel; ethical life (Sittlichkeit); expressivism; the self; self-interpretation; hermeneutics; praxis

Hrčak ID:

160955

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/160955

Publication date:

8.3.2016.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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