ABSTRACT
Modern academic philosophy turns out by and large to provide means for a more accurate and informed definition of disagreement rather than for progress toward its resolution. Professors of philosophy who concern themselves with questions of justice and of practical rationality turn out to disagree with each other as sharply, as variously, and, so it seems, as irremediably upon how such questions are to be answered as anyone else. They do indeed succeed in articulating the rival standpoints with greater clarity, greater fluency, and a wider range of arguments than do most others, but apparently little more than this. The only other type of resource generally available in our society to such persons is that which is supplied by participation in the life of one of those groups whose thought and action are informed by some distinctive profession of settled conviction with regard to justice and to practical rationality.
