in part because they entwined with border disputes between orthodox theology
and its philosophical hybrids. In France, another version of existentialism
became famous because it mediated the border between academic philosophy
and the self-dramatization of literary intellectuals on the writers’ market.
There is no reason to expect that such border issues will come to an end.
The growing density of intellectual networks drives them to form groups and
disciplines, and just as inevitably makes their borders into topics. Borders shift
within academic fields, and between academic thought communities and those
outside. The edges of things have always made deep troubles for philosophers.
Such troubles are intellectuals’ hidden treasure, the philosophers’ stone that
keeps philosophy alive.
784 •^ Intellectual Communities: Western Paths