What might it mean to think of philosophy as being in the condition of modernism - in which its relation to its own past, and hence its sense of its own future, has become an undismissable problem? If philosophy's hitherto-defining conventions can neither be taken for granted nor rejected, they must be put in question - which means re-evaluating the relation between the form and content of philosophical writing, rethinking the demands that such writing must place on its readers, and reconceiving the nature of philosophy itself.