Author: Adam Briggle
Robert Frodeman and Adam Briggle teach in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the University of North Texas. They are coauthors of the forthcoming Socrates Tenured: The Institutions of 21st-Century Philosophy. This article is reprinted with permission from the New York Times’ philosophy blog The Stone.
When Philosophy Lost Its Way
The history of Western philosophy can be presented in a number of ways. It can be told in terms of periods—ancient, medieval, and modern. We can divide it into rival traditions (empiricism versus rationalism, analytic versus Continental) or into various core areas (metaphysics, epistemology, ethics). It can also, of course, be viewed through the critical lens of gender or racial exclusion, as a discipline almost entirely fashioned for and by white European men.