We are selves only in that certain issues matter for us. What I am as a self, my identity, is essentially defined by the way things have significance for me.
Philosophers
Charles Taylor
Canadian political philosopher (1931- ), professor emeritus at McGill, a leading communitarian. Sources of the Self and A Secular Age recast the modern self and secularisation; Templeton and Kyoto Prizes followed.
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Charles Taylor's Other Quotes
Authenticity is not the enemy of demands that emanate from beyond the self; it supposes such demands.
Our age is very far from settling in to a comfortable unbelief. We live in a condition where we cannot help but be aware that there are a number of different construals.
My discovering my own identity doesn't mean that I work it out in isolation, but that I negotiate it through dialogue, partly overt, partly internal, with others.