Sources of the Self offers a history of modern identity. With this expression, Taylor refers to the entirety of largely unarticulated conceptions of what it means to be a human being who acts—what the feelings of inwardness, freedom, individuality, and being embedded in nature mean in the modern Western context. Furthermore, he demonstrates how the ideals and prohibitions of this conception of identity—what it brings to the forefront and what it casts into the shadows—shape our philosophical thinking, our epistemology, and our philosophy of language, often without our awareness. Ultimately, this presentation of our concept of identity aims to serve as a renewed understanding of modernity as a starting point.