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Articles

The Decline & Rebirth of Philosophy

Daniel Kaufman sees philosophy ailing as a guide for Western culture, and considers how it might be revived.

Among the humanities, philosophy is particularly dependent on its place in the Academy. Literature has existed for as long as human beings have been reading and writing, and would continue to be enjoyed by millions even if it were no longer part of any academic endeavor. Novelists, even difficult, esoteric ones such as Joyce and Faulkner, write for readers, not for literature professors. Similarily, theologians such as Reinhold Niebuhr and Mordecai Kaplan wrote for the public, not just for other theologians. If theology ceased to be a university subject, work such as theirs would continue unabated.

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