Abstract

Charles Taylor's seminal essay “The Politics of Recognition,” which made the “vital human need” for recognition into one of contemporary politics' most pressing concerns, has since its appearance almost fifteen years ago generated a rich and impressive range of commentaries.1 Few of these, however, focus on Taylor's expressivist understanding of identity as self-realization through expression.2 By not taking expressivism into account as one of the key themes implicitly underpinning his recognition theory, these commentaries have obscured a central dimension of his thinking about identity formation. Taylor's theory is often seen as anchored in a tension between two different ideas of…