That strange but rivetting declaration, both unsettling and consoling if true, introduced most emphatically into our human odyssey by Judaism, that God speaks to us on our way, and that, accordingly, our calling as human beings is to listen to that speech from beyond and “hear” – I knew almost at once after receiving the invitation to be Wilde Lecturer at Oxford University during Michaelmas Term 1993 that this was what I wanted to discuss. I realized, of course, that most of my philosophical colleagues would regard the topic as “off the wall” for a philosopher – or something one would have to be slightly mad to take seriously. But now, as the twentieth century draws to its close, the conviction is slowly emerging in many quarters that perhaps the hostility of us moderns to the religious traditions which brought us forth and have so long nourished us has been ill-advised and self-defeating. And deep in the traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, is the attribution of speech to God. To excise those attributions from those religions would be to have only shards left.

So “off the wall” or not – that was my topic. Might it be the case that contemporary philosophy is at a place where it is possible to reflect in fresh ways on the declaration: “And God said …” Central in the philosophical thought of our century has been the topic of language.