Theodicy

Summary

What happened to philosophy in the twentieth century? Laurie Calhoun has an answer to this question, but you are probably not going to like it—certainly not if you are comfortably ensconced in academia. That would make you one of “the experts” taken to task and whose “expertise” is unmasked in Theodicy. If, on the other hand, you left philosophy perplexed, wondering what was going on, why none of your professors bore any resemblance whatsoever to Socrates, then you might be relieved to discover that there are historical grounds for your perplexity. Something did happen. And it was big.

Theodicy is a radical work of metaphilosophy, which begins as a deceptively simple examination of the question: how would things be different, if perspectivism rather than absolutism were true? The answer to that metaphysical question leads to an endless proliferation of other questions—about art, language, science, psychiatry, society and dissent—culminating in a metaphilosophical theory about the nature of philosophy itself. An abridged version of this work was first published under the title Philosophy Unmasked: a skeptic’s critique, by the University Press of Kansas. The unabridged edition of Theodicy was published by Subversive Pulp Press in 2018 and is now available as an audiobook, narrated by the author.

Praise for Philosophy Unmasked (the abridged version of Theodicy):

"A bracing gale of fresh thinking about the meaning and significance of philosophy."

—Barry Allen, author of Truth in Philosophy

"Excellent and extraordinary."

—James Kellenberger, author of Relationship Morality

"A provocative statement of analytic philosophy’s current discontents."

—Babette E. Babich, author of Nietzsche's Philosophy of Science