Charles Taylor and Michel Foucault in the context of identity and freedom

The issue of identity is a fundamental subject of study that has been carefully deliberated and taken into consideration from a wide variety of perspectives ever since its origination in Ancient Greek times. The main motivation for this insight is the desire to be "first-person singular" and define oneself inwardly. When a person defines themselves, they have the tendency to do so by regarding certain codes as an essential part of their existence. These codes may be moral, religious, cultural as well as historical and social.These codes through which persons define themselves are conceptualized as "the ideal good life". Identity involves not only answering the question of how we ought to live in order to reach out the ideal good life, but also the ideas and practices which are inevita-ble for us to maintain certain values. On this aspect, the problem of "freedom" coincides with the issue of identity. Some philosophers, like Charles Taylor, not only claim the role of identity in making us free but also emphasize identity's function in emancipating us from certain modern malaises. On the exact opposite end of this perspective lies Michel Foucault, who regards identity as an obstacle to freedom and rejects its having any positive contribution. The conflict in opinion is what gives us the main problem and thereby, what the study aims to pursue: To compare and contrast Taylor and Foucault's ideas in the con-text of identity and freedom, and to seek an answer to the question of whether identity makes us free or not.