ABSTRACT
Nowadays most philosophers and their students are atheists, and a good many, especially of the students, are women. These facts, perhaps, account for two tendencies in current philosophical writing: one, to feminize the pronouns so as somehow to make amends for centuries of anti-female bias; and the other, to be on the alert for, and to deplore when found, any systematic reliance on religious faith in the work of philosophers of the past. But whereas the first of these tendencies may rightly be considered a risible and distracting piece of philosophical correctness, the second is surely respectable. This is by no means to say that a philosopher need only mention the Wise Author of Nature in order to consign himself to some philosophical scrap-heap. Rather it means that, for any given piece of philosophy, if in theory it can be shown to stand free of any theistic presuppositions which might in fact have informed its composition, then its appeal as a piece of philosophy is very significantly widened. It becomes an object not only of historical or special interest, but of live philosophical consideration by everyone in a secular age (such as its author, however devout, would wish it to be). This is a point that would not have been lost on Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, or any other of the great modern philosophers whose theism, like Reid’s, is deeply embedded in their writings.
