A Challenge to Philosophers in the Atomic Age

Abstract

Philosophy, I know, is philosophia perennis. A “dated” philosophy, therefore, would appear almost to amount to a contradiction in terms. In this sense the “challenge” implied by the title of this paper seems out of place. A challenge to philosophers—well, perhaps. But a challenge to philosophers in the atomic age (or, for that matter, in any specific age)—no!In general such an objection is well taken. But we are, of course, never confronted with a situation “in general,” but always with a very specific—and to-day, moreover, with a unique—situation. It is a situation which has changed radically even since the close of official hostilities at the so-called end of World War II. True enough, the history of the two world-wars had already brought home to us the fact that, with the accelerating development of applied science and technology, wars were rapidly approaching a tremendous scale of destructive power. Thus it became difficult to imagine any possibilities of still more powerful implements of devastation.