Abstract

Charles Taylor is one of the most prolific and wide-ranging philosophers in the English-speaking world today. He writes with authority in the fields of moral theory, political philosophy, theories of language, the history of western thought, epistemology and hermeneutics.1 Currently an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at McGill University, he has enjoyed a distinguished academic career which includes being Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at Oxford University. He has also been active and influential in the politics of his native Quebec, arguing passionately for recognition of Quebec as a distinct society, but against the province’s secession from Canada. For many years he has been a member of the New Democratic Party. The American philosopher Richard Rorty described him as ‘among the dozen most important philosophers writing today’ and one of North America’s ‘most thoughtful politicians’. He is interviewed here by Ruth Abbey. Ruth Abbey: There can be no doubt that the theories and practices of management would benefit from the contributions of philosophers: as the editors of this journal contend, many of the terms and ideas used by managers are philosophical ones, yet there is little awareness of this and their uses and meanings in management practices remain undertheorised. Management therefore rests on a host of unarticulated but constitutive beliefs and ideas. One of the ideas that has recurred in your writings over the years has been just how significant the unsaid is, and how valuable it can be to articulate this. Could you say something about this?