Historied Thought, Constructed World offers a fresh vision: one that engages the reigning philosophies of the West, endorses the radical possibilities of historicity and flux, and reconciles the best themes of Anglo-American and continental European philosophy. Margolis sketches a program for the philosophy of the future, addressing topics such as the historical character of thinking, the intelligible world as artifact, the inseparability of theory and practice, and the reliability of a world without assured changeless structures. Through the use of numbered theorems that construct an interlocking argument, Margolis carefully articulates his distinctive ideas in the context of work by Quine, Davidson, Putnam, Rorty, Derrida, Habermas, and Foucault. The discussion includes all the central topics of the philosophical tradition: from science to morality, from language to world, from persons to objects, from nature to culture, from causality to purpose, from change to history. What emerges is an argument against essentialism, one that champions the historicity of thought and cultural constructionism. Margolis (The Flux of History and the Flux of Science, Univ. of California Pr., 1993) is dissatisfied with contemporary analytic philosophy. In his view, philosophers ignore the radical implications of historicity. Our concepts are not immutable, and the search for foundations for knowledge must be abandoned. Margolis advances his claims for relativism and flux in the form of numbered propositions, e.g., "(10.48) objectivity cannot but be consensual," on which he then comments. The author's criticism rests on a remarkably wide knowledge of the literature. By far the best feature of the book is the elaborate notes, in which he has perceptive things to say about scores of philosophical controversies. Still, his contention that modern analytic philosophy cannot solve its own problems seems unproved. Recommended for academic libraries.?David Gordon, Bowling Green State Univ., Ohio Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. "A major work, provocative, rich in detailed arguments, and striking in the development of its theme of the historicity of thought. A sustained and perspicuous presentation of the ideas of a leading American philosopher."—Marx Wartofsky, editor of Philosophical Forum "A major work, provocative, rich in detailed arguments, and striking in the development of its theme of the historicity of thought. A sustained and perspicuous presentation of the ideas of a leading American philosopher."―Marx Wartofsky, editor of Philosophical Forum Joseph Margolis is Laura Carnell Professor of Philosophy at Temple University. Among his many books are The Flux of History and the Flux of Science (California, 1993) and Interpretation Radical But Not Unruly: The New Puzzle of the Arts and History (California, 1994). Historied Thought, Constructed World: A Conceptual Primer for the Turn of the Millennium By Joseph Margolis University of California Press Copyright © 1995 Joseph Margolis All right reserved. ISBN: 0520201132 Chapter I Terms of Reference I have a simple proposal to make about a difficult matter. I should like to set down a reckoning of the most promising controversial philosophical options that have gained most in plausibility as we approach the end of the millennium, to explain their significance, and to speculate in their favor. The topic is an irresistible one, but it also deserves a straightforward airing. The options I have in mind are beseiged on every side. The complexity of the disputes they involve threatens to swamp the understanding of any audience of wide reading that lacks a specialist knowledge of philosophy itself. The matter is important, but it is scandalously difficult to collect and make explicit. The truth is, we are (I think) on the threshold of certain revolutionary possibilities. Imagine that it were possible—it is possible—to organize a set of program notes for the theorizing melodies of the entire symphony of thought that ranges from the time of the ancient Greeks to the present, isolating the themes that have become insistent as the century draws to a close and that favor the most novel and most radical possibilities of that entire opus. There is no compendium of these ideas, and yet they have made their inexorable way to the very edge of collective awareness in our own time, against the dominant doctrines of more than two thousand years of continuous dispute in the West. They are ready to be collected, and they are already so clear that they are no longer arcane. In my opinion, they are the threshold resources of conceptual visions that will surely compare favorably in scope and power and intellectual generosity with the greatest turns in thought that our common history has dared to claim. I admit the proposal is immodest. But what if its theme were true? Even a small failure would then be worth the inning. Now, a radical conceptual innovat