The Place of the Sacred in the Absence of God: Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age

Publication Type

Journal Article

Year of Publication

2008

Author

Gordon, Peter E.

Journal

Journal of the History of Ideas

Volume

69

Issue

4

Pages

647-673

Language

English

Keywords

prayer
Taylor, Charles

Annotation

As indicated by the title, this essay is a review of Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age. Gordon begins the essay with a brief discussion of Simone Weil arguing she “opened her soul to a highly reflective, politically progressive and philosophically articulate strain of Catholicism, not unlike the sort Taylor seeks to defend in his book”. (p. 648). After briefly commenting on Weil’s statement in “Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God”, that “attention without an object is prayer in its supreme form”, he moves on to the discussion of Taylor’s work briefly returning to the subject of objectless prayer at the end of the essay.