In a discussion group about the foundations of mathematics this
general question came up: In philosophy, are we nowadays less
ambitious in our attempts at formulating theories or systems that
attempts to solve everything (an all encompassing theory)? I know I am
a bit vague here (history of
philosophy is not my area), but I think if a contemporary philosopher
would try to publish works like those of Kant, he would be looked upon
with great scepsis, or even viewed as a crank. Todays philosophers,
like all other sciences, try to solve small well defined questions,
instead of
formulating all encompassing theories.
Or is it so? So this is my assignment: Please point me to a text
(preferably on the web, but if its available from a library or Amazon,
thats ok) where this historical trend is explicitly discussed. Or,
even better, if you
are well studied in the history of philosophy, argue one way or the
other with good illustrations from the history of philosophy.

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Clarification of Question by dansynek-ga on 17 Mar 2003 00:32 PST

This question is probably best answered by someone familiar with
philosphy. A list of all encompassing theories found with google is
NOT what I am after. I want references to discussions within the
community of philosophers or historians of philsophy about the decline
(or not) of studies of all encompassing theories. I think the
commentators who pointed to the decline of religious foundations are
on the right track.
(thanks wondering-ga for the interesting quote)

Here's a quote for you
(http://members.tripod.com/GellnerPage/InterGellner2.html):
For a long time after confidence in the stable theistic premises of
knowledge had been undermined, what people were looking for was a
substitute for them. That is to say, there had for so long been a
single category in terms of what everything was ultimately to be
explained, namely God, that for a long time people went on looking for
some other such single category in terms of which everything was
ultimately to be explained. At first they thought they had found it in
Science. Then, with the neo-Kantians, History becomes the
all-explaining category. Then you get Marxism, which tries to
integrate History and Science into a single framework of ultimate
explanation. It isn't till we get to distinctively modern thought- to,
shall we say, Nietzsche - that people start to say: "Perhaps there is
no single category in terms of which everything is ultimately to be
explained. Perhaps reality is, right to the very end of the road,
pluralistic. Perhaps it just consists of a lot of different, separate
things, and the only way to understand it is to investigate them
severally. In this case any single, all-encompassing explanatory
theory will be a delusion, a dream, and will prevent us from seeing
reality as it is" Bertrand Russell, just to take a single example, was
very insistent on this approach. It deeply permeates the whole of
modern Empiricism.

I know that you are looking for something from the philosophy
department instead of the physics department, however, if you think
that theoretical physics is at all philosophical, you may consider the
following:

Michio Kaku's Superstring Symphony (Superstrings, Unified Field
Theory, The theory of everything)
http://www.techtv.com/bigthinkers/features/story/0,23008,3333508,00.html

Another recent philosopher, Ayn Rand, came to mind with her
Objectivist philosophy.  While she passed away in 1982, philosophers
still apply and extend her philosophy.  Based upon the summary linked
to below, her philosophy seems broad and all-encompassing.

I suppose this comment, along with my previous comment about String
theory and (I suspect) lmnop's citation of Ken Wilbur's "A Theory of
Everything", are putting forward the argument that philosophers are
still formulating all-encompassing theories.

"Objectivism in Brief" by Richard Speer, 2002.
http://www.newenlightenment.com/philosum.html

The only recent (last century and this) philosophers that come to mind
as having created all encompassing theories are Jean Paul Sartre and
Peter Singer. The latter is still alive and working at Princeton
university. Hope that's helpful in some way!

Sorry to post again, something else just came to mind. Lots of older
philosophers based their unifying theories around religion or in some
way the existence of god. This is hardly the prevalent view now, and
perhaps this in some way accounts for the answering of 'little
questions'.

You might want to read my works: Novitas Mundi: Perception of the
History of Being (NYU 1980; SUNY reprint 1994), Foundation: Matter the
Body Itself (SUNY 1996), and Faith and Philosophy: The Historical
Impact (Ashgate March 2003).  Related material at dgleahy.com.

hi go to 

http://www.superstringtheory.com/forum/basicboard/messages3/149.html

i know its not complete but if thier is a god, its somewere in the
cycles.  and best of all freedom of choise does exist instead of doing
something cause the current understanding of physis leaves no choise
to be made.  but under this idea physics still totaly can work.  its
kind of funny though, if this is right does that mean christ was the
anti-christ?