Abstract: This chapter discusses the philosophical and historical account that Charles Taylor developed on agency, identity, and the good, in particular in his collected essays and in Sources of the Self. The chapter begins with a discussion of Taylor's theories of agency and language and the philosophical anthropology that he develops. Taylor's retrieval and critique of the ethos of Romantic expressivism and his turn to modernism as a resource for responding to this are examined.

Keywords: Charles Taylor, agency, identity, the good, language, Romantic expressivism, modernism, Sources of the Self, melancholy,