Philosophy does differ from the sciences in its systematic devotion to examining the assumptions that implicitly shape our various activities, including the sciences and philosophical reflection itself. But this project does not demand setting aside what history has taught us about the matter under scrutiny — any more than the sciences are failing to progress when, relying on what they have come to know about their domain, they find themselves impelled, in what are indeed their •philosophical' moments, to reflect on basic assumptions they have tacitly been making. The effort to be maximally reflective does not involve detaching ourselves from the commitments that only our time and place have given us. Instead, it involves making the best use of the resources we happen to find at our disposal