What Use Are Historical Periods? They Often Confuse Things

Labels such as “medieval” and “modern” are highly relative scholarly impositions. What counts as “modern” in philosophy is quite different – in chronology and in style – from modernity in literary studies. While such categories may be convenient for organizing the historiography of philosophy (among other disciplines), no one really thinks they represent precise and absolute distinctions. What, after all, does it mean for a philosophy to be “modern”?