Ce mémoire traite de la critique communautarienne du libéralisme et se donne deux projets. D’abord, il s’agit de formuler une position de synthèse à partir des travaux des philosophes Charles Taylor, Michael Sandel, Alasdair MacIntyre et Michael Walzer. Cette synthèse s’articule autour de trois axes, soit ontologique, sociale et méthodologique. Le deuxième projet est d’évaluer cette position pour statuer sur son rapport au libéralisme, et, plus précisément, pour déterminer si elle est seulement une critique, une alternative, ou encore une variante à l’intérieur du libéralisme. Il est conclu que le communautarisme est réconciliable avec une certaine forme de libéralisme et que sa critique permet même de l’améliorer. / In this essay about the communitarian critique of liberalism I seek to reach two goals. First, it is to form a synthesis from the works of philosophers Charles Taylor, Michael Sandel, Alasdair MacIntyre and Michael Walzer. This synthesis is articulated through three axes: ontologicial, social and methodological. Building on this, my second objective is to assess its relation to liberalism. More specifically, I seek to determine whether communitarianism is merely a critique, an alternative or a variant of liberalism. My conclusion is that communitarianism is reconciliable with a certain form of liberalism and that its critique allows to improve it.

Ce mémoire porte sur le problème de la légitimité de revendications émanant de multiples sources d’autorité (morales, politiques et légales). L’histoire conceptuelle du pluralisme montre que les significations qui lui sont attribuées sont à la fois contingentes et hétéroclites, leurs traductions en pratique étant loin d’être évidentes. Notre principal objectif est de remettre en question l’hypothèse selon laquelle l’approche de Charles Taylor est pluraliste. Si la reconnaissance d’une pluralité de biens joue un rôle fondamental dans la philosophie de Taylor, il est néanmoins nécessaire de montrer l’important clivage existant entre, d’une part, le fait d’accepter que nos conflits de valeurs soient souvent irréconciliables et, d’autre part, la volonté de trouver un moyen de mettre en harmonie des finalités concurrentes. Au terme de notre enquête, nous espérons mettre en lumière l’écart que nous constatons entre les questions reliées à la différence culturelle et les problèmes posés par des revendications d’autorité formulées par des associations formelles. / This dissertation explores the problem of the legitimacy of claims that emanate from multiple sources of authority (moral, political and legal). Often, in political philosophy, one encounters claims on behalf of pluralism, yet there is anything but a consensus over the meaning of this fundamental concept. Charles Taylor is a philosopher who is often referred to as a pluralist, but I shall argue that this is a mistake. By way of a foray into different domains of practical reason, this study suggests that the gap between issues concerning cultural difference and pluralist claims to authority is obscured and obliterated in Taylor’s work. One of the central goals of his philosophy is that of reconciling competing aims and ends and this is incompatible with pluralism.

<p>“What characterizes an acceptable theory of self-realization?” The thrust of the present dissertation is towards seeking an answer to this central problem, which stems from the fundamental human experience that life involves change, and that in a modern society such change is often expected to be towards a realization of potentials and the good life for the individual. </p><p>The dissertation has a three-fold purpose. The first is to clarify the content of five modern theories of self-realization from three academic fields. The theories are those of the psychologist Abraham H. Maslow, the philosophers Charles Taylor and Alan Gewirth, and the theologians Reinhold Niebuhr and Bernard Lonergan. These are methodologically studied by the help of seven analytical questions. The second purpose is to perform a lengthwise comparatative analysis of the five theories, the results of which lead to the third; namely to critically discuss several elements of the reality of human life which have proven to be missing or supressed in much of the material.</p><p>The theoretical framework for the dissertation runs along two axes: one concerns what is developed as a distinction between internalism and relationalism, and the other is to cast a critical light on the lack of attention paid by the the theories of self-realization to experiences which run counter to optimistic ideas of individual development, such as death, loss and dependence. </p><p>The dissertation concludes with an outline for a constructive position based on the necessity of a theory’s closeness to experience, and on the need for reconcilitation of what may seem to be unabridgeble in human life. A theory of self-realization must do more than formulate positive conditions for change. It must also take into consideration conditions that are not directly related to, and sometimes even run contrary to, realization of the self.</p>

“What characterizes an acceptable theory of self-realization?” The thrust of the present dissertation is towards seeking an answer to this central problem, which stems from the fundamental human experience that life involves change, and that in a modern society such change is often expected to be towards a realization of potentials and the good life for the individual. The dissertation has a three-fold purpose. The first is to clarify the content of five modern theories of self-realization from three academic fields. The theories are those of the psychologist Abraham H. Maslow, the philosophers Charles Taylor and Alan Gewirth, and the theologians Reinhold Niebuhr and Bernard Lonergan. These are methodologically studied by the help of seven analytical questions. The second purpose is to perform a lengthwise comparatative analysis of the five theories, the results of which lead to the third; namely to critically discuss several elements of the reality of human life which have proven to be missing or supressed in much of the material. The theoretical framework for the dissertation runs along two axes: one concerns what is developed as a distinction between internalism and relationalism, and the other is to cast a critical light on the lack of attention paid by the the theories of self-realization to experiences which run counter to optimistic ideas of individual development, such as death, loss and dependence. The dissertation concludes with an outline for a constructive position based on the necessity of a theory’s closeness to experience, and on the need for reconcilitation of what may seem to be unabridgeble in human life. A theory of self-realization must do more than formulate positive conditions for change. It must also take into consideration conditions that are not directly related to, and sometimes even run contrary to, realization of the self.

According to the National Rites of Passage Institute (NROPI), African Americans have lost their authentic identity, which has led to inauthentic, broken individuals and communities. In order to reverse these trends, according to NROPI, African Americans must rediscover their authentic identity through a rites of passage program that plucks them from a Eurocentric narrative and places them into an Afrocentric one. This thesis explores how NROPI is a religious response to adversity that takes on a decidedly American form of contemporary religiosity. I argue that by analyzing NROPI and other contemporary rites of passage programs through the lens of religious studies, scholars can gain a deeper understanding of how these programs fit into the broader American religious landscape, and provide commentary on the changing nature of that religiosity, and how their language and rituals can be used as rhetorical strategies for social cohesion and control.

This thesis argues that pluralism and diversity pose a more fundamental challenge to liberal constitutionalism than is sometimes recognised by liberal political theorists. While the challenges presented by moral pluralism at the philosophical level, and by cultural diversity at the socio-cultural level, have received a great deal of attention in recent political thought, the background within which these themes become salient has not always been fully acknowledged. What is new in the modern world is not so much diversity of lifestyles, but the disintegration of frameworks that traditionally provided an unproblematic basis for political authority. What this modern challenge forces us to confront then, is the idea that ‘the people’ who are subject to law, are also, as citizens, the ultimate source of political authority. I consider in detail the work of two contemporary political theorists who have provided among the most sustained and far-reaching attempts to respond to this challenge, Charles Taylor and Jürgen Habermas. Both make a significant contribution to responding to the contemporary situation of pluralism by taking on board the ‘dialogical’ nature of identity, and the role of the ‘people’ as the ultimate source of political power. However each places a heavy reliance on a privileged standpoint that may shield political judgement from the full implications of modern pluralism: Habermas, by appealing to ‘post-conventional morality’ and Taylor, by appealing to an incipient teleology.

This dissertation evaluates the recent academic consensus on liberal multiculturalism. I argue that this apparent consensus, by subsuming religious experience under the general category of culture, has rested upon undefended and contestable conceptions of modern religious life. In the liberal multicultural literature, cultures are primarily identified as sharing certain ethnic, linguistic, or geographic attributes, which is to say morally arbitrary particulars that can be defended without raising the possibility of conflict over metaphysical beliefs. In such theories, the possibility of conflict due to diverse religious principles or claims to the transcendent is either steadfastly ignored or, more typically, explained away as the expression of perverted religious faith. I argue that this conception of the relation between culture and religion fails to provide an account of liberal multiculturalism that is persuasive to religious believers on their own terms. To illustrate this failing, I begin with an examination of the Canadian policy of official multiculturalism and the constitutional design of Pierre Trudeau. I argue that the resistance of Québécois nationalists to liberal multiculturalism, as well as the conflict between the Québécois and minority religious groups within Quebec, has been animated by religious and quasi-religious claims to the transcendent. I maintain that to truly confront this basic problem of religious difference, one must articulate and defend the substantive visions of religious life that are implicit in liberal multicultural theory. To this end, I contrast the portrait of religious life and secularization that is implicit in Will Kymlicka’s liberal theory of minority rights with the recent account of modern religious life presented by Charles Taylor. I conclude by suggesting that Kymlicka’s and Taylor’s contrasting conceptions of religious difference—which are fundamentally at odds regarding the relation of the right to the good, and the diversity and nature of genuine religious belief—underline the extent to which liberal multicultural theory has reached an academic consensus only by ignoring the reality of religious diversity. / text

Les sociétés modernes sont de plus en plus souvent confrontées aux enjeux de la diversité. Le multiculturalisme tente d’y apporter une réponse à travers un modèle de société basé sur une politique de la reconnaissance. Selon moi, l’argumentation des multiculturalistes repose sur leur conception de l’identité. C’est pourquoi, pour apporter une critique nouvelle de ce courant de pensée, j’analyse les écrits de ses principaux défenseurs, Will Kymlicka et Charles Taylor, en concentrant mon analyse sur ce qu’ils entendent par identité. Je soutiens que leur conception ne laisse pas assez de place au potentiel d’évolution et ne considère pas suffisamment l’importance et le pouvoir de la volonté individuelle dans la construction de l’identité. En m’appuyant sur l’étude d’autres auteurs, je souligne la nécessité de considérer les frontières entre le semblable et l’autre de manière plus souple et de reconnaître que la violence peut s’exercer par la création de différences entre les personnes. J’ai choisi la figure radicale de « l’homme sans qualités » de Robert Musil pour montrer comment un individu peut devenir autonome à travers un acte de destruction créatrice. Enfin, je conclus que l’État devrait favoriser ce processus, et permettre au sujet, qui est selon moi dénué d’une nature authentique, de penser son existence comme une expérience du possible. / Modern societies are increasingly confronted with the challenge of diversity. Defenders of multiculturalism responded with a model of society based on a politics of recognition. This model can be connected to a particular conception of identity. In order to make a new contribution to the critique of this approach, this work presents an analysis of the writings of two of the main proponents: Will Kymlicka and Charles Taylor. It does so by focusing on their conception of identity and argues that it does not leave enough room for change and fails to fully recognise the importance and the impact of personal will. The works of other authors are analysed in order to emphasize the need to view the boundaries between sameness and otherness in a more flexible fashion and to acknowledge that violence can attend the creation of differences between people. The figure of the “man without qualifies” portrayed by the novelist Robert Musil is offered as emblematic of how an individual can become autonomous through an act of creative destruction. Finally, it is concluded that the state should facilitate the creation of difference and this requires allowing citizens to conceive of their lives as an experience of the possible.

This study focuses on Charles Taylor’s educational thought with a view to understanding his contributions to the discipline of Philosophy of Education. No comprehensive study of Charles Taylor’s educational thought has been attempted. There is a single dissertation and a dozen or so published periodical articles that do take Taylor’s educational views into consideration, to be sure. Yet these studies, which limit themselves to Taylor’s account of the recognition and/or non-recognition of identity in multicultural societies, are insufficient on five accounts: i) they are indifferent to the historical nature of Taylor’s scholarly work; ii) they neglect the philosophical sources of his educational thought; iii) they fail to highlight the interconnections between the key educational themes he takes up; iv) they disregard his major critics and the dialectical tensions raised by these critics; and v) they are somewhat dated in that they do not consider his more recent scholarship. My dissertation seeks to fill these scholarly gaps. My thesis is that an inner logic is implicit in Charles Taylor’s educational thought. I argue that Taylor’s views on the modern condition, (i.e. in his readings of Descartes, Kant, Herder, and Hegel), are closely interwoven with his views on modern education, and that interconnected currents in the modern history of ideas elucidated by Taylor, (i.e. scientific rationality, exclusive humanism, and the ethics of authenticity), have contributed to the rise of, and the sensitivity toward, both the theory and the practice of the politics of recognition in contemporary educational institutions. I conclude that an education for culturally diverse minds and hearts, anchored in human, historical, and epistemological recognition, and democratically open to both immanence and transcendence, is the true calling of Taylor’s educational thought.

Ce mémoire traite de la critique communautarienne du libéralisme et se donne deux projets. D’abord, il s’agit de formuler une position de synthèse à partir des travaux des philosophes Charles Taylor, Michael Sandel, Alasdair MacIntyre et Michael Walzer. Cette synthèse s’articule autour de trois axes, soit ontologique, sociale et méthodologique. Le deuxième projet est d’évaluer cette position pour statuer sur son rapport au libéralisme, et, plus précisément, pour déterminer si elle est seulement une critique, une alternative, ou encore une variante à l’intérieur du libéralisme. Il est conclu que le communautarisme est réconciliable avec une certaine forme de libéralisme et que sa critique permet même de l’améliorer. / In this essay about the communitarian critique of liberalism I seek to reach two goals. First, it is to form a synthesis from the works of philosophers Charles Taylor, Michael Sandel, Alasdair MacIntyre and Michael Walzer. This synthesis is articulated through three axes: ontologicial, social and methodological. Building on this, my second objective is to assess its relation to liberalism. More specifically, I seek to determine whether communitarianism is merely a critique, an alternative or a variant of liberalism. My conclusion is that communitarianism is reconciliable with a certain form of liberalism and that its critique allows to improve it.