The work of Taylor is not a fad and will not go away either. The
mechanistic world is over as an exclusive guiding metaphor but not
yet as pragmatic or useful one.
I suggest that the challenge of the times is to be able to shift
guiding metaphors - even cosmologies - as appropriate and to be able
to discern appropriateness. Also that it will be the synthesis - or
recombinations - of the various metpahors that will provide the most
power.
This is not meant to argue with any of David Markham's statements but
to recover the past and allow us to fully integrate and continually
recreate possibility. Taylor and Adam Smith, to name two great
contributors to thinking and society who currently tend to be
invalidated - were thinkers of their times and ahead of their times.
It is the kind of thinking that David says we need to move beyond
that took the more profound thinking of these two and many others and
trivialised and applied in ways that have lost the power of the
original thinking.
-- Michael McMaster Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk