A Secular Age

A Secular Age explores secularization’s impact on society as part of a broader project to understand the conditions of belief in the modern world. Taylor’s concern is not just with the decline of religious belief but with how secularization transforms the way individuals and societies experience, negotiate, and sustain meaning, identity, and community.

This theme comes from the view that modernity has led to a loss of a shared, transcendent moral framework that once provided coherence to individual lives and social order. As a Catholic philosopher, Taylor sees value in the communal and spiritual dimensions that religious belief offered in pre-modern societies. His concern is that secularization, by making belief a choice among many options, disrupts the continuity and depth these religious frameworks once provided. This is not simply about lamenting the loss of faith but highlighting this shift’s existential and social consequences.

Taylor’s skepticism toward what he sees as the reductionism of modern secular frameworks shapes his critique. He challenges the idea that secularization represents a simple liberation from religious illusions, arguing instead that it represents a complex reconfiguration of meaning-making processes. Taylor’s philosophical commitments to existentialism and phenomenology lead him to emphasize the lived experiences of individuals and communities as they navigate this reconfigured landscape.