Calvin and Eco (wandering)

...the formal doctrines that underpinned human thought were practiced from 1700 on followed a trajectory with the shape of an Omega, i.e. After 300 years we are back close to our starting point. Natural scientists no longer separate the "observer" from the "world observed", as they did in the heyday of classical physics; sovereign nation-states find their independence circumscribed; and Descartes' foundations ambitions are discredited, taking philosophy back to the skepticism of Montaigne.

- Stephen Toulmin