Over on the “Only a Game” blog there is an interesting series of reviews on Charles “Chuck” Taylor’s latest book “A Secular Age”.

Charles Taylor is considered possibly the greatest living philosopher in the english speaking world. I must admit rather shamefully to not having heard of him until recently. He is an interesting guy and is in many respects an intellectual descendent of Wittgenstein.

A practising Catholic he nonetheless holds views that are a very unconventional fit to what most people expect a Catholic to be. He is clearly an original thinker. His latest book “A Secular Age” charts the historical development of religion in the west leading up to and including secularism. His study focuses on how society has undergone the transition from a time when it was virtually impossible not to believe in God to a time where even  those of the strongest and most determined faith accept that their is but one of many options available to them.

Rather than post a copy of somebody elses review (I haven’t read the book yet) I thought i’d just link to them. It makes interesting reading and the book is top of my wishlist. It is a serial review – here are the first three in the series:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

On the same blog an excellent (though sarcastic) post on the horrors of a “science pope” (warning may contain Feyerabend).