Introduction: The Philosophic Life in Question

Abstract

The chapters of this book have a common theme: philosophy as a mode of existence put into question. Political societies frequently regard philosophers as potential threats to morality and religion, and those who speak for politics often demand a defense of philosophy. Beyond politics, theoretical people, too, advance a sophisticated panoply of charges against philosophic rationalism as a tenable or defensible basis for life. It is variously contended that everything is in flux and thus human reason is theoretically impotent, that divine will transcends and reveals the impotence of human reason, that philosophy self-destructs because it is based ultimately on faith rather than reason, that full philosophic independence and freedom are morally and psychologically unattainable will-o’-the-wisps, and that the profound disagreements among the greatest philosophers constitute undeniably decisive evidence of their failure to arrive at rationally demonstrable truths as regard the most important matters. The authors of the present volume—ranging widely over intellectual history from the Socratics to Maimonides and the Bible, from Machiavelli, Bacon, and Hobbes through Rousseau to Nietzsche, Heidegger, and beyond, and then back again to Socrates—aspire to reopen the case for the philosophic life in the face of, and while doing justice to, its most severe challengers.