Language, Concepts, and Emotions in Charles Taylor’s The Language Animal

Abstract

Human beings shape the landscapes of their individual, social, and political lives entangled in a web of language. Everything that human beings do, the way they act and think, is shaped by the use of language. Charles Taylor explores these anthropological dimensions of language. This article discusses three different aspects of Taylor’s language-oriented anthropology and confronts his considerations with three distinct questions concerning the relation between language and the lives of human beings. The first question is how Taylor’s constitutive view of language can be related to his criticism of the mediational view of language. Next, the relation between language and concepts is discussed. Finally, emotions are considered.