It is almost always difficult, some would say impossible, to describe the shape of any particular era while it is happening. Controversy does not imply later importance, and ideas which seem antithetical are often later seen as aspects of the same inquiry in slightly different forms. "Contemporary" almost always means diversity, because there has been no time to anneal away the less important work, join together ideas, and codify systems in a manner that is easy to explain to others. This article is devoted to some of the currents in contemporary Western philosophy at the turn of the 21st century.
