An Analysis Of Charles Taylor's Thought Of "Modern Social Imagination"

Modernity is one of the most important issues in modern society,attracting countless thinkers to study it.Charles Taylor have been succeed in the research field of modernity,the book Modern Social Imaginaries dates back to the establishment of the concept of modern western moral order so as to describe the history of western modernity,focusing on the social imagination behind the modern social practice.Taylor tried to break the dualistic way of thinking,interpreting modernity in the form of hermeneutics,in order to put forward the thought of "social imagination".His hermeneutics is based on his anthropology which emphasize that the starting point of human's perspective is the "imagination" of ordinary people to society,and it is a modern discourse of hermeneutics.Social imagination and social theory are different in many ways,social imagination is a way of people imagine its collective life,which could contributes to the possibility of social practice and express the human's self understanding in several aspects: the market economy,public areas,the people's sovereignty,etc.Under this understanding,the human being is not only the follower of the system but also the creator of value who needs to seek the liberation of his own initiative.By understanding and analyzing the thoughts of Charles Taylor's modern society,it will be of great significance to the development and construction of Chinese modernity.