Abstract

Stephan Körner is a noble guardian of the grand tradition in philosophy and has given us many reasons to wish him well. But here I take him admiringly to task for doubting that there are eternal verities. The conceptual puzzles of anthropology yield a case for the epistemological unity of mankind. In understanding the thought of other cultures, we cannot fail to find in it some of our own categories, constitutive principles and maximal kinds. Their logic must be, at heart, ours. In upshot, since the bars of our conceptual prison can be seen neither from within nor from without, I conclude that they are not there at all. Yet none of this denies the inspiring quality of his work — the grand tradition is safe with him.