From Publishers Weekly
In the early 20th century, Harvard sociologist William James delivered a series of lectures in Edinburgh that were eventually put together in book form as The Varieties of Religious Experience, still in print today. A century later, philosophy professor Charles Taylor spoke for the same lecture series, revisiting James's work for a postmodern audience. His Varieties of Religion Today is a provocative, witty and worthy conversation with James's timeless work.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
In these lectures, delivered at the Institute for the Human Sciences in Vienna, Taylor (philosophy, McGill Univ.; Sources of the Self) reconsiders William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), a seminal text in American religious studies, examining whether the points James made are relevant today. While recognizing James's extraordinary insight into the spiritual needs of the modern world, Taylor makes one major criticism: that James rejected the legitimacy of communal religious experience, i.e., the experience of Church, and concentrated on individual religious experience as paradigmatic. But even as he takes issue with the narrowness of James's focus, Taylor finds much of interest in his subject and uses James's works as a springboard for his own discussions of the current state of religion in America, which he sees as struggling with the same debate about religious faith and doubt. In doing so, Taylor offers a well-written, easily accessible overview of today's individualistic religious tendencies. Recommended for larger public collections and those with strong holdings in theology. Augustine J. Curley, Newark Abbey, NJ
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
