ABSTRACT
This chapter itemizes the historicist dimensions that Charles Taylor identifies as pivotal in the formation of the modern western identity in Sources of the Self. The modern western self affirms ordinary life; believes in practical benevolence; aspires to freedom as radical disengagement; possesses a sense of its own inwardness; and prizes authenticity. This chapter underscores the pluralism of Taylor’s account of the modern western self, showing how some of its strands dovetail while others diverge. It reviews Sources’ methods and proposes a fourfold motivation for the book.
