I listened to all 36 lectures on the history of modern philosophy from Decartes to Derrida by Prof. Cahoone. He stressed that from Wittengenstein on, several thinkers pronounced much of the work of earlier philosophers "meaningless". By the time the modern scientists and postmodern philosophers had their say, it did indeed seem that the combined dream of the ancients, a understandable and comprehensive philosophy, coupled with those of the 17th and 18th centuries who tried to find a solid, indisputable basis for all knowledge, was indeed hopeless.
From what I heard, it was clear that people today, taken together, know a great deal. However, all knowledge is open to clarification and falsification and much of our expression of knowledge is inevitably entwined with cultural and linguistic conventions and habits. The search for an indisputable basis included a dream of a SINGLE foundation on which all else is built. But today's specialization shows that there is too much to know for all human knowledge to be based on one foundation. Further, the emerging idea of "emergence", where littler bits combine to make bigger bits that actually have properties, abilities, relations and characteristics that only stem from themselves as they are and are not part of the lower realm of simpler parts that make up a given level. Rather like two nations could be at total war while a citizen from each is in love with and happily marries a citizen from the other. The properties, the nature of some aggregates or combination EMERGE but are not part of the components.
So, the best we can do today seems to be careful investigation and thought in many separate fields that will not be combined into one lovely set of facts and principles.
