Sectarianism in Philosophy

Philosophy is generally identified with free and open-ended enquiry, grounded in universal reason, and capable of subjecting all other forms of knowledge to critical interrogation. At the same time, philosophy only exists in the form of particular schools: Platonic, Thomistic, Kantian, Hegelian, Marxist, Heideggerian, analytic, ‘continental’ and so on. These schools are known for being mutually exclusive, rivalrous and combative. What then is the relation between philosophy’s claim to disinterested universal rational inquiry and its historical existence as an assemblage of apparently sectarian schools? This is the question that formed the topic for a conversation that Valery Vino initiated with Ian Hunter. The conversation was recorded on the 2nd of April 2025. A transcribed, edited, revised, augmented and footnoted version of this conversation will shortly be published by History of European Ideas.

Ian Hunter is an emeritus professor in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Queensland. He is the author of numerous works on the history of philosophical, religious, juridical and political thought, including Rival Enlightenments (Cambridge University Press, 2001) and The Secularisation of the Confessional State (Cambridge University Press, 2007). He has recently completed a major work on the history of Kantian philosophy, The Kantian Religion, to be published by Princeton University Press in 2026.

Valery Vino is a member of mongrel matter collective. He is a philosopher who operates under multiple aliases in diverse circles, from academia to the avant-garde. His most recent editorials include Philosophy of Final Words (mongrel matter, 2025), Fearless Speech: Philosophy & Journalism (Parrhesia 41, 2025), a decolonial manual (punctum books, in press) and a special issue of Contemporary Aesthetics on poverty (2026).