Canadian Charles Taylor is one of the most important philosophers of our times. Taylor specializes in tracing the development  and enrichment of the notion of the self throughout history. Our age has the richest (and sometimes the most narcissistic) concept of the self. I look at this development through the lens of Taylor’s work and also the example of how our learning to read silently to ourselves in the middle ages contributed to giving the modern individual a rich interior life that he or she didn’t have in ancient times.