Lester Miller | Duke University (original) (raw)

Drafts by Lester Miller

This project is an interpretation of the work of Charles Taylor, a philosopher who is thought to ... more This project is an interpretation of the work of Charles Taylor, a philosopher who is thought to be anti-naturalistic and, at times, critical of a certain kind of political liberalism. Through a sustained discussion of Taylor's dialogical conception of an intersubjective self, I aim to show how he can potentially be brought into fruitful bi-directional conversation with both naturalistic and liberal modes of inquiry. My argumentative strategy relies first on bringing Taylor's very philosophical, and occasionally quite abstract and impressionistic, discussions of modern epistemology (chapter one) into dialogue with the most relevant varieties of naturalism appropriate to inquiry on human value (chapter two), in order to construct what I take to be a plausible naturalized ontology of the self that best explains the foundations of social life and purposive action (chapters three, four, and five). After this discussion, I then bring this ontology and theory of action to bear on normative political issues that are relevant to liberal democratic states and American society (chapter five). When Taylor's ontological communitarianism is brought into contact with a rich, more complex liberal theory of, for example, Alexis de Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill, or John Rawls, many points of overlap are made manifest. This perspectival synthesis of Taylor's discussions with traditions that he sometimes explicitly criticizes is intended to yield a more comprehensive picture of human nature and value. An integration of reflective horizons, I argue, ultimately grounds an interpretive approach to moral and political problems that is stronger than each of its parts, due to the widened availability of background resources from which the theory is able to draw.

A draft of the third chapter of my dissertation.

A draft of the fourth chapter of my dissertation.

This project is an interpretation of the work of Charles Taylor, a philosopher who is thought to ... more This project is an interpretation of the work of Charles Taylor, a philosopher who is thought to be anti-naturalistic and, at times, critical of a certain kind of political liberalism. Through a sustained discussion of Taylor's dialogical conception of an intersubjective self, I aim to show how he can potentially be brought into fruitful bi-directional conversation with both naturalistic and liberal modes of inquiry. My argumentative strategy relies first on bringing Taylor's very philosophical, and occasionally quite abstract and impressionistic, discussions of modern epistemology (chapter one) into dialogue with the most relevant varieties of naturalism appropriate to inquiry on human value (chapter two), in order to construct what I take to be a plausible naturalized ontology of the self that best explains the foundations of social life and purposive action (chapters three, four, and five). After this discussion, I then bring this ontology and theory of action to bear on normative political issues that are relevant to liberal democratic states and American society (chapter five). When Taylor's ontological communitarianism is brought into contact with a rich, more complex liberal theory of, for example, Alexis de Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill, or John Rawls, many points of overlap are made manifest. This perspectival synthesis of Taylor's discussions with traditions that he sometimes explicitly criticizes is intended to yield a more comprehensive picture of human nature and value. An integration of reflective horizons, I argue, ultimately grounds an interpretive approach to moral and political problems that is stronger than each of its parts, due to the widened availability of background resources from which the theory is able to draw.

A draft of the third chapter of my dissertation.

A draft of the fourth chapter of my dissertation.