Modern Challenges to Past Philosophy: Arguments and Responses

Does philosophy have a timeless essence? Are the writings that have come down to us over the centuries from philosophers of genius mere souvenirs from a bygone era? Or are their thoughts still eminently worth examining with care?

Modern Challenges to Past Philosophy argues pondering past philosophy with modern problems in mind is worth the effort, even though earlier works are uninformed by modern science and lack some of tools of modern analysis. The great texts defamiliarize our world and offer solutions to crucial questions often forgotten as we fixate on current philosophical trends.

Modern Challenges is no appeal to a return to a golden past but a study designed to show how and why understanding earlier works of some of the most penetrating minds ever to ponder eternally valid questions can contribute to a renewal of our own culture.

Thomas Sullivan is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, and before his recent retirement held the Aquinas Chair in Philosophy and Theology, at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, USA. He is the co-author, with Sandra Menssen, of The Agnostic Inquirer: Revelation from a Philosophical Standpoint (2007).

Russell Pannier is Emeritus Professor of Law at William Mitchell College of Law, St. Paul, USA. He has published in the areas of philosophy of logic, metaphysics, jurisprudence, ethics, constitutional law, philosophy of religion, and decision theory. He has published several essays on some of those topics with Thomas D. Sullivan.