
Modern Social Imaginaries
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
Retelling the history of Western modernity, Taylor traces the development of a distinct social imaginary. Animated by the idea of a moral order based on the mutual benefit of equal participants, the Western social imaginary is characterized by three key cultural forms—the economy, the public sphere, and self-governance. Taylor's account of these cultural formations provides a fresh perspective on how to read the specifics of Western modernity: how we came to imagine society primarily as an economy for exchanging goods and services to promote mutual prosperity, how we began to imagine the public sphere as a metaphorical place for deliberation and discussion among strangers on issues of mutual concern, and how we invented the idea of a self-governing people capable of secular "founding" acts without recourse to transcendent principles. Accessible in length and style, Modern Social Imaginaries offers a clear and concise framework for understanding the structure of modern life in the West and the different forms modernity has taken around the world.
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Information
Table of contents
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 The Modern Moral Order
- 2 What Is a ‘‘Social Imaginary’’?
- 3 The Specter of Idealism
- 4 The Great Disembedding
- 5 The Economy as Objectified Reality
- 6 The Public Sphere
- 7 Public and Private
- 8 The Sovereign People
- 9 An All-Pervasive Order
- 10 The Direct-Access Society
- 11 Agency and Objectification
- 12 Modes of Narration
- 13 The Meaning of Secularity
- 14 Provincializing Europe
- Notes