Modernità plurivoca. Charles Taylor e la sfida epistemologica della contemporaneità

Charles Taylor’s position with respect to the subject of modernity is characteristically and programmatically plurivocal. While aware of the difficulties, he in fact believes that there were properly moral motives behind modernization and secularization, and is therefore critical of the denigrators of our time. In lieu of this temptation, Taylor proposes a re-reading of the self-understanding of the modern era and individuals. On the whole, exactly a plurivocal vision of modernity emerges: a vision that thus seeks to hold together, to reconcile, every noteworthy factor, in the name of a substantial acceptance of its developments. But here the crucial issue opens up: namely, what is the strategy adopted by the Canadian author to bring the conflicting tensions of modernity into reconciliation? Put differently and more vividly, how to hold pluralism and the rejection of relativism together? After presenting the strategy in question, the essay concludes with some critical remarks on the subject.