Review of 'A Companion to Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand' edited by Graham Oppy et al.: Monash University Publishing, $59.95 pb, 734 pp, 9780980651201

Abstract

Early in Murray Bail's novel 'The Pages' (2008), we find the following commentary on the very idea of philosophical research being undertaken in Australia: "How anyone can believe that Sydney could produce in its own backyard a philosopher of world significance or even minor significance shows how little understanding there is of the conditions required for philosophical thought." Bail suggests that Sydney - with its beautiful beaches and bright sunlight, its convict heritage and its breezy self-confidence - is a place unfit for the kind of introspection required of the philosopher. Even if the environment were more conducive to philosophical reflection, by the time this country began 'standing on its own two feet', the important philosophical questions 'had more or less been settled'. All that remained were mere paltry questions of exegesis. Bail would presumably be astonished by the publication of this 700-page volume dedicated to the achievements of Australasian philosophy, thereat majority of which concerns developments since World War II, many of them occurring in Sydney - and, for that matter, long after the epoch when such problems were meant to be solved.