Authenticity and the reconciliation of modernity

Charles W. Lowney

pp. 71-91

in: Charles W. Lowney (ed), Charles Taylor, Michael Polanyi and the critique of modernity, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017

Abstract

This chapter shows how Taylor's notion of authenticity, Polanyi's postcritical epistemology and Aristotle's conception of actualization come together in a fruitful way. Lowney demonstrates how the subjective feeling of beauty or a "resonance" can plausibly indicate the existence of reality or of a personal ideal. He shows how three strands of modernity, represented by the Aristotelian traditionalist, scientific rationalist, and the subjective expressivist, all have something to contribute to a new modernity, and how each may find valuable insights in views that it normally opposes.

Cited authors

Aristoteles