Taylor began his undergraduate education at McGill University (B.A. in History in 1952). He continued his studies at the University of Oxford, first as a Rhodes Scholar at Balliol College (B.A. in Philosophy, Politics and Economics) in 1955, and then as a post-graduate, (D.Phil. in 1961), under the supervision of Isaiah Berlin and G.E.M. Anscombe.

He succeeded John Plamenatz as Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at the University of Oxford and became a Fellow of All Souls College. For many years he was Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, where he is now professor emeritus. Taylor is also a Board of Trustees Professor of Law and Philosophy at Northwestern University in Evanston and serves as Contributing Editor for the academic journal Public Culture, published by Duke University Press.

In 1991, Taylor was appointed to the Conseil de la langue française in the province of Quebec, at which point he critiqued Quebec's commercial sign laws. In 1995, he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada. In 2000, he was made a Grand Officer of the National Order of Quebec. He was awarded the 2007 Templeton Prize for progress towards research or discoveries about spiritual realities, which includes a cash award of US$1.5 million. In 2007 he and Gérard Bouchard were appointed to head a one-year Commission of Inquiry into what would be a "reasonable accommodation" of his home province of Quebec, Canada. Commission de consultation sur les pratiques d'accommodement reliées aux différences culturelles In June 2008 he was awarded the Kyoto Prize in the arts and philosophy category. The Kyoto Prize is sometimes referred to as the Japanese Nobel. North American Kyoto Prize Web Site: Kyoto Prize

In order to understand his views it is helpful to understand his philosophical background, especially his writings on Hegel, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty. Taylor rejects naturalism and formalist epistemologies.

In his essay To Follow a Rule, Taylor explores why people can fail to follow rule, and what kind of knowledge is it that allows a person to successfully follow a rule, such as the arrow on a sign. The intellectualist tradition presupposes that to follow directions we must know a set of propositions and premises about how to follow directions. But how do we know whether or not the directions are adequate?

Taylor argues that Wittgenstein's solution is that all interpretation of rules draws upon a tacit background. This background is not more rules or premises, but what Wittgenstein calls "forms of life." More specifically, Wittgenstein says in the Philosophical Investigations that "Obeying a rule is a practice." Taylor situates the interpretation of rules within the practices that are incorporated into our bodies in the form of habits, dispositions, and tendencies.

Following Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Michael Polanyi, and Wittgenstein, Taylor argues that it is mistaken to presuppose that our understanding of the world is primarily mediated by representations. It is only against an unarticulated background that representations can make sense to us. On occasion we do follow rules, but Taylor reminds us that rules do not contain the principles of their own application.

Taylor (as well as Alasdair MacIntyre, Michael Walzer, Michael Sandel, and Gad Barzilai) is associated with a communitarian critique of liberal theory's understanding of the "self." Communitarians emphasize the importance of social institutions in the development of individual meaning and identity.

In his 1991 Massey Lecture, "The Malaise of Modernity," Taylor argued that political theorists, from John Locke and Thomas Hobbes to John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin, have neglected the way in which individuals arise within the context supplied by societies. A more realistic understanding of the "self" recognizes the social background against which life choices gain importance and meaning.

Taylor was a candidate for the social democratic New Democratic Party in Mount Royal on three occasions in the 1960s, beginning with the 1962 federal election when he came in third place behind Liberal Alan MacNaughton. He improved his standing in 1963, coming in second. Most famously, he also lost in the 1965 election to newcomer and future prime minister, Pierre Trudeau. This campaign garnered national attention. Taylor's fourth and final attempt to enter the Canadian House of Commons was in the 1968 federal election, when he came in second as an NDP candidate in the riding of Dollard. In 2008, he endorsed the NDP candidate in Westmount...Ville-Marie, Anne Lagacé Dowson. He was also a professor to Jack Layton, and recommended Layton pursue his doctoral studies at the University of Toronto.

• 1964. The Explanation of Behavior.
• 1975. Hegel.
• 1979. Hegel and Modern Society.
• 1985. Philosophical Papers (2 volumes).
• 1989. The Making of Modern Identity. Harvard University Press
• 1992. The Malaise of Modernity, being the published version of Taylor's Massey Lectures. Reprinted in the U.S. as The Ethics of Authenticity. Harvard University Press
• 1994. Multiculturalism: Examining The Politics of Recognition.
• 1995. Philosophical Arguments. Harvard University Press
• 1999. A Catholic Modernity?.
• 2002. Varieties of Religion Today: William James Revisited. Harvard University Press

• 2004. Modern Social Imaginaries.
• 2007. A Secular Age. Harvard University Press

• Can Human Action Be Explained?; Charles Taylor gives a lecture at Columbia University
• A Political Ethic of Solidarity; Charles Taylor gives a lecture on a future politics self-consciously based on differing views and foundations in Milan
• The Future of The Secular; Charles Taylor gives lecture at the New School
• "Spiritual Forgetting"; Charles Taylor at awarding of Templeton Prize
• «Rencontre avec Charles Taylor» (25/11/2001) ; Chasseurs d’idéeshttp://fora.tv/2007/05/04/Keynote_Lecture_with_Charles_Taylor, Télé-Québec.
• «La religion dans la Cité des modernes : un divorce sans issue?» (14/10/2006) ; Charles Taylor and Pierre Manent, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal, «Les grandes conférences Argument».
• Charles Taylor Key Note Lecture, Secular Imaginaries Conference

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