HOW MUCH CAN A PHILOSOPHER DO?

Some philosophers (Stephen Mulhall, Peter Winch, and D.Z. Phillips) complained that in Sources of the Self Charles Taylor allowed his Christian allegiance to “peep through”, whereas, as a philosopher, he should have done justice to other views than his own, without taking sides. They would no doubt have protested even more about A Secular Age. Reading these two books in the context of his previous work it becomes hard to accuse Taylor of failing to expound fairly views he opposes, especially regarding British empiricism. Moreover, how disinterested can critical genealogy of religion in the West ever be?     

DUNS SCOTUS FACING REALITY: BETWEEN ABSOLUTE CONTINGENCY AND UNQUESTIONABLE CONSISTENCY

Building on Catherine Pickstock's paper, "Duns Scotus: His Historical and Contemporary Significance", the aim of this essay is to highlight in Scotus' theology the roots of the doctrine of univocity of being. To hold univocity in philosophy is indeed not so evident until one receives from a higher science the confidence that (1) knowing the origin of things and knowing what things are, are intrinsically different questions, and the certainty that (2) the real is self-consistent, the central implication of which is that the law of identity is the primary basis of metaphysics. Duns Scotus assigned a new task to philosophy, diverting it from the questions that had occupied it since its origin: namely, the task of describing quiddities. This development led somewhat to the current post-modern crisis in philosophy.