Single Idea 8047

[catalogued under 1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 7. Despair over Philosophy]

Full Idea

The failure, in the Enlightenment, of philosophy to provide what religion could no longer furnish was an important cause of philosophy losing its central cultural role and becoming a marginal, narrowly academic subject.

Gist of Idea

Philosophy has been marginalised by its failure in the Enlightenment to replace religion

Source

Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 4)

Book Reference

MacIntyre,Alasdair: 'After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory' [Duckworth 1982], p.48


A Reaction

A strange way of presenting the situation. Philosophy has never aspired to furnish beliefs for the masses. Plato offered them myths. The refutation of religion was difficult and complex. There is no returning from there to a new folk simplicity.