Review of Arts and Humanities

Deconstructing Taylor’s A Secular Age to Get at a Deeper Sense of the Philosophical Problem
Rajesh Sampath

Abstract
This paper will analyze various themes in the philosopheis of Heidegger and Rorty to frame a discussion of Charles Taylor’s relatively recent and monumental work A Secular Age. We will examine the limits of Taylor’s philosophical arguments to handle concepts of secularism, atheism, religion and the very process of modernization itself. The paper concludes with a return to the philosophical complexity of Hegel to evaluate early twenty-first century attempts, such as Taylor’s, to get at the problem at hand, namely the fate of religion and secularism in our contemporary times.

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