- 118 views
- 239 downloads
The Limits of Recognition: Culture and Historical Necessity in the Work of Rawls and Taylor
-
- Author(s) / Creator(s)
-
Canadian political philosophy – particularly the work by Charles Taylor, James
Tully, andWill Kymlicka – can be read against the changing landscape of Canadian
constitutional and social history. In this paper, I will trace the genealogy
of Taylor’s politics of recognition from Rawls’ Theory of Justice, through the
liberal-communitarian debates to the triumph of liberalism after the fall of the
Soviet Union. In the form of reading called “contrapuntal” by Edward Said,
I will then connect Taylor’s theory with the social uprisings of the 1960s, the
transition to neoliberalism in the 1970s, and the Canadian constitutional debates
of the 1980s and 1990s. I will argue that Taylor’s communitarianism
is made possible by Canadian political realities, and are an attempt to provide
a way to deal adequately with questions of Indigenous and Quebecois
sovereignty. I will then try to show how Taylor’s philosophy is inadequate to
the task, and to suggest ways we might better approach these problems as we
move out of neoliberalism into whatever new conjuncture is coming next. -
- Date created
- 2020-10-30
-
- Subjects / Keywords
-
- Type of Item
- Conference/Workshop Presentation