Charles Taylor (philosopher) as the Japanese Nobel. In 2015, he was awarded the John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity, a prize he shared with philosopher Jürgen Habermas. In 2016, he was awarded the inaugural $1-million Berggruen Prize for being "a thinker whose ideas are of broad significance for shaping human self-understanding and the advancement of humanity." In order to understand Taylor's views, it is helpful to understand his philosophical background, especially his writings on Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Taylor rejects naturalism and formalist epistemology. He is part of an influential intellectual
Thomas Vaughan (philosopher) out with an alchemical collaborator, Edward Bolnest, over money matters and alleged broken promises, and the matter came to litigation after Bolnest had threatened violence. Vaughan was accused as part of this affair of spending "most of his time in the study of Naturall Philosophy and Chimicall Phisick". He is reported as having confessed that he had "long sought and long missed... the philosopher's stone." Thomas Vaughan (philosopher) Thomas Vaughan (1621 − 27 February 1666) was a Welsh philosopher and alchemist, who wrote in English. He is now remembered for his work in the field of natural magic. A Royalist