Charles Taylor is among the most eminent philosophers—and easily the most famous Canadian philosopher—of our time. He is co-chair of the prestigious Consultation Commission on Accommodation Practices Related to Cultural Differences of the Canadian government. He was Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at Oxford University and a professor of political sciences and philosophy at the McGill University in Montreal, where he is currently professor emeritus. Taylor has obtained numerous awards, including the Prix Léon-Gérin awarded by the Québec government in 1992 and the prestigious 2007 Templeton Prize for progress towards research or discoveries about spiritual realities. He was made a Grand officier of the Ordre national du Québec and a Companion of the Order of Canada.

Taylor’s teaching and research areas have been philosophy of action, philosophy of social science, political theory, Greek political thought, moral philosophy, the culture of Western modernity, philosophy of language, theories of meaning, language and politics, and German idealism. He is currently working on a research project investigating the political culture of modernity.

He is the author of several books and numerous articles, and his noted publications are: Hegel (1975), Hegel and Modern Society (1979), Social Theory as Practice (1985), Human Agency and Language (1985), Philosophy and the Human Sciences (1985), Source of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989), The Malaise of Modernity (1991), Multiculturalism and The Politics of Recognition(1992), Reconciling the Solitudes: Essays on Canadian Federalism and Nationalism (1993; translated from the French), Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition (1994), Philosophical Arguments (1995) and A Secular Age (2007).

He held the Korhari Chair in the year 2011 and delivered the Annual Rajni Kothari lecture titled 'Two Conceptions of Language: Hobbes versus Herder' on 5 May 2011.