Volume 5, Issue 1, Fall 1990
Peter H. Van Ness
Pages 3-17
Apology, Speculation, and Philosophy’s Fate
My initial task in this essay is to identify precisely the original philosophical import of philosophical renections about religion. Next I outline their changing natures and interrelations in the works of exemplary figures from the history of Western religious thought. Finally I argue that the relative desuetude of the traditional forms of apology and speculalion is emblemalic of the present faring of philosophy as a form of cultural discourse.