Meaning under the Nova-Effect: The Role of Substantive and Functional Definitions in Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age

Abstract

In A Secular Age, Charles Taylor presents a narrative interpretation of modernity that dispels common myths about the decline or regression of religion in the modern age propagated by anti-religious negative narratives popular within the social sciences. An important part of Taylor’s critique centres on the terminology employed by these narratives and their lack of substantive definitions. This paper examines the substantive and functional definitions of ‘secularisation,’ ‘secularity’ and ‘religion’ which Taylor presents in A Secular Age, and demonstrates how Taylor attacks the anti-religious negative narratives of modernity through his analysis of the meaning of these terms.