In contemporary Western culture philosophy is in a state of collapse. This does not mean that philosophy has altogether died and is incapable of resuscitation. If that were so, if philosophy were truly a thing of the past and had no future, then it would have been a mistake all along; at best philosophy would have had a faulty conception of itself by failing to understand that, in the end, it must be abolished, or must abolish itself, or must slowly fade from all relevance. To say that philosophy is in collapse today is to record a cultural fact, the fact that philosophy has been rejected. Philosophy is no longer a living force in culture. In modern and especially in postmodern culture the dominant attitude towards philosophy is one of incredulity. What philosophy historically maintained and what it ostensibly stood for is regarded as incredible: impossible to believe and enact. This is the way philosophy is regarded. But – and this is the point that so many contemporary critics fail to grasp – the rejection of philosophy is not the same thing as its refutation.
