LOOKING BACK AND LOOKING AHEAD

Let us take stock of where we have come and where we are headed. I said in Chapter 1 that the ethical arguments of Chapters 2–4 would introduce the central themes of the book. But those arguments would be incomplete in a number of ways. Subsequent chapters would attempt to fill the gaps by situating the arguments of Chapters 2–4 in a broader theory of value (Chapters 5–8) and in a theory about the nature of philosophical inquiry (Chapters 9–11). We have undertaken the first of these tasks in the past four chapters. Among the things we have learned is that the arguments of Chapters 2–4 are situated at the divide between the third dimension of value and the fourth dimension. The challenge posed by relativism at the end of Chapter 8 was this: How, if at all, might one access the fourth dimension of value from the limited points of view and forms of life of the third dimension in which we necessarily find ourselves?

As it turns out, this was the problem faced by the retreatants of Chapter 3. (Hereafter, as in Chapter 3, I mean by the “retreatants” those who stayed behind to continue the search after others had left.) What did they do? They decided to take an attitude of respect in the sense of openness toward all points of view and forms of life. And what was their purpose in doing this?