Rescuing the Lost Language of Meaning

Charles Taylor and the Recovery of the Lost Language of Meaning

Some elements in modern culture have worked to repress/restrict our language usage--in particular what Charles Taylor calls the 'meta-biological', the language of significance. Restricted language means necessarily limited awareness/thinking capacity. This webinar is not about a lost civilization discovered by an anthropologist, but similar in some ways. Taylor seeks a recovery of 'constitutive' language, and he wants to expand our restricted linguistic horizons to enrich and empower.

Dr. Gordon E. Carkner reveals the significant dynamics of the three rungs in Taylor's ladder of meaning: habits, verbal articulation, and interpretation. He includes a beautiful illustration from UK biblical scholar N. T. Wright. Wright shows how Taylor's expanded linguistic grasp adds such value to human speech in his interpretation of the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. He reveals it afresh within a larger landscape of meanings, enhancing the human imagination. This highlights much more of the full 'city' of human language, rather than relying on simply one smaller suburb.

Dr. Gordon E. Carkner, the Director of Graduate & Faculty Campus Ministries, along with his wife Ute love connecting with future global leaders within the graduate student university community. Through hospitality, biblical investigation, prayer and discussions of faith and academic studies, these students are drawn into kingdom concerns and introduced to God's powerful agape love.