Докса (Jun 2018)
PHENOMENOLOGY AND HERMENEUTIC AS THE BASIC ELEMENTS OF CHARLES TAYLOR’S METHODOLOGY
Abstract
The article is aimed at researching the basic methodological signposts of Charles Taylor, indicated in his work «A Secular Age», in particular, its phenomenological and hermeneutical constituents.. Charles Taylor’s methodology is cohesive convergence of its elements, such as phenomenology, hermeneutics, narrative approach, which integrate with each other and create its heuristic direction. It has been shown that the formation of Charles Taylor’s ideas and outlook was greatly influenced by E. Husserl’s phenomenology and P. Ricoeur’s hermeneutics. The ideas which appeared crucial for the works of Taylor were the explanation of intersubjectivity, the correlation between We and I, the ability and capability of a human being to interpret the surrounding world, thus shaping it. It has been emphasized that these methods are by far not the only ones in Charles Taylor’s methodology, but they are the core ones. The necessity and importance of continual research into Taylor’s methodology has also been highlighted in the work. The central thematic core which unites methodological traditions is the problem of experience, its exploration and interpretation. Charles Taylor suggests the specific phenomenological–hermeneutic synthesis which along with the narrative is employed to explore experience, the religious one in particular. A special attention has been drawn to the narrative approach in Charles Taylor’s methodology which allows to use the concept of narratives in order to discover, explain and demonstrate the phenomena under analysis and the process of secularization. There are analyzed all the levels of conceptualization of the narrative ( i.e. micro-, macro-, grand- and metanarrative) which are presented in the work “A Secular Age” and which are combined by the author in the concept of «narratives of secularization» taking into consideration their hierarchy and correlations. It has been emphasized that to analyze the process of secularization Charles Taylor most frequently employs micronarratives as fractions of experience, fixed in texts, as well as metanarratives as large-scale theoretical constructions that exist in the shape of universal explanatory schemes. The heuristic validity of Charles Taylor’s methodology in general and that of the concept of «narratives of the secularization» in particular have both been proved in the article.
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