Taylor and liberal naturalism

Charles Taylor wholeheartedly endorses the liberal naturalist conception of reality as containing more kinds of thing than the kind posited by successful scientific explanations. The task of bringing the central, historically enduring features of human agency clearly into view falls to what Taylor calls “philosophical anthropology”. Liberal naturalists have used the term “anthropology” in a variety of ways, but in Taylor's usage philosophical anthropology refers to reflection on the constitutive features of human reality in its full scope. The constitutive features of human reality are the features that make human reality the kind of reality it is. Taylor takes seriously the thought that success in the formulation of a poem, the composition of a piece of music, or the production of a work of art, can be just as much a matter of articulating a truth, or responding appropriately to reality, as success in the construction of a scientific theory can be.