The Oxford Companion to Philosophy

THE brave, large aim of this book is to bring philosophy together between two covers better than ever before.

The absolutist position corresponds to common traditional views of morality, particularly of a religious kind--what might be called the 'Ten Commandments' idea of morality. Nevertheless, when detached from appeals to religious authority absolutism may appear to be vulnerable to rational criticism.

A fourth part of the book, not an insignificant one, consists in about 150 entries on contemporary philosophers, the largest groups being American and British. It would have been an omission to leave out contemporaries, and faint-hearted. Philosophy thrives. Its past must not be allowed to exclude its present.