Charles Taylor is 1.5 million dollars richer as of last week. For what it's worth I argue here that Taylor and Alasdair MacIntyre are the postwar era's most influential Anglophone Catholic intellectuals. Taylor spoke at Notre Dame just before receiving the award and I was able to attend. He discussed his forthcoming book on secularization, emphasizing the importance of the 1960s in this process even as he resists any linear line of secularization a la Max Weber. MacIntyre introduced Taylor by noting that to read Taylor's Sources of the Self and the books discussed therein, is to receive a better liberal arts education than that offered by most colleges. (He didn't exclude Notre Dame!)

John T. McGreevy is the Charles and Jill Fischer Provost at the University of Notre Dame.

Also by this author
© 2024 Commonweal Magazine. All rights reserved. Design by Point Five. Site by Deck Fifty.